
Class J&HLClL 



Book_ 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




EVIDENCES 



— OF- 



CHRISTIANITY, 



BY THE 

Rev. John Tallmadge Bergen, a. m., 

robert schell professor of 

ethics and evidences 

of christianity- 

HOPE COLLEGE, 
HOLLAND, 



1902. 

WN. H. BINGHAM, PRINTER. 

HOLLAND, MICH. 



V 2 - 



Twti.rB*A*v or 

CONGRESS, 
"!>o Co*« Rtetrvec 

AUG. 190? 



CLASlS ^t-XX* Wo. 
COPY 8. 



Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year 1902, by 
The Rev. John Tallmadge Bergen, A. M., 

In the Office of theLibrarian of Congress, Washington, D.C. 



All Rights Reserved. 



PREFACE: 



The practical need of a suitable text- 
book for our short course in Evidences of 
Christianity, is the cause of this little 
volume. Fisher's "Manual of Christian 
Evidences" has been our text-book for six 
years, and we yield to none in our esteem 
and love for that standard work. How- 
ever, certain questions have always arisen 
in every class, viz: Concerning the Divine 
Existence, the Old Testament, the assault 
of modern science upon miracles, etc., 
which are not treated at any length in the 
Manual. To meet these issues we have 
recast in new form some of the old truths. 
We acknowledge our indebtedness to the 
Rev. A. H. Demarest, the Rev. Chas. S. 
Wright and the Rev. Geo. Z. Collier, for 



iv. PREFACE. 

the use of their lectures, copied from the 
course of the late Rev. Dr. Wm. H. Camp- 
bell, President of Rutgers College, N. J. 
From these sources, together with the 
notes which the author wrote while stud} r - 
ing under the same grand old teacher, 
many points in the volume have been de- 
rived, although they but poorly represent 
the master-mind which twenty years ago 
inspired them. 

A new Spinozism is to-day standing in 
the path of Christian progress and striking 
lusty blows at miracles. The materialism 
of our times is clothed and fed by this 
mechanical hypothesis of the universe. 
Christian Evidences must be emplo^^ed in 
the conquest of this foe. 

It is time for all denominational teach- 
ers of the faith, "which was once for all 
delivered unto the saints," to forgive and 
forget and press onward in this struggle, 
the issue of which involves the foundation 
of the faith of all. 

That this volume may prove to be one little 
dart that will find a joint in the enemy's 
armor, is the author's prayer. 



INTRODUCTION. 



DEFINITION. 

EVIDENCES of Christianity is an ar- 
gument proving that Jesus Christ, as 
prophesied in the Old Testament and 
revealed in the New, is an historical, su- 
pernatural person: that the Gospels, Acts 
and Epistles are genuine, trustworthy? 
accounts of His life and teachings: and 
that Christianity is the divine religion. 
Evidences of Christianity must be disting- 
uished from Apologetics, i Apologetics is 
a system of apology or defence of all the 
points of Christian doctrine against an ac- 
tual assault. Apologetics is broader than 
Evidences, and has become a branch of 
scientific theology. Evidences of Christ- 
ianity is aggressive. It builds up a posi- 
tive logical argument, the conclusion of 

1 Bruce. Apologetics. — p 33. 



vi. INTROD UCTION. 

which is that Jesus and Christianity are 
all that they claim to be, viz: Divinely in- 
spired and supernatural. 

NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE. 

Bvidence, from "e" intensive, and 
"video" to see, means the ground by which 
that which claims to be truth is made clear 
to the mind. There are two kinds of evi- 
dence, demonstrative and moral. Demon- 
strative evidence is argument with neces- 
sary truth; i.e., truth that cannot be other- 
wise. The proof that the square of the 
hypothenuse of a right angled triangle is 
equal to the sum of the squares of the base 
and altitude is demonstrative evidence. 
Every fact in the argument is a necessary 
truth. It is evident that this kind of 
reasoning cannot apply to Evidences of 
Christianity, nor to any science except pure 
mathematics. 

Moral evidence is argument with con- 
tingent or moral truth; i. e., truth the con- 
trary of which might have been. Astrono- 
my proceeds by moral evidence. Its foun- 
dation is pure mathematics; but its conclu- 
sions, derived through the telescope and 



IXTROD UCTION. vii. 

spectroscope, depend upon the human 
senses, and hence an element of uncertain- 
ty must enter which makes the evidence 
probable or moral. 

Moral evidence may amount to cer- 
tainty, and its conclusion may be as firmly 
established in our belief as that of demon- 
strative evidence. Nearly all things that 
we believe, when examined as to their 
proof, will be found dependent upon moral 
evidence. Demonstrative evidence applies 
not to facts but to assumptions, which 
are necessary to thought and exist only 
in pure reasoning. Evidences of Christian- 
ity employs facts of nature and history, 
hence its reasoning is moral like that of all 
other applied sciences. 

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL. 

Evidences of Christianity may employ 
internal and external proof. The internal 
proof is in the consciousness of the be- 
liever in the experience of his soul.' It 
includes all that Christianity is to the con- 
verted man. 2 The craving of every 

1 Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 

2 A former judge of one of our courts said to me, "I have 

enough evidence in my own exparience to prove 
Christianity a supernatural religion." 



viii. INTRODUCTION. 

thoughtful soul for the very satisfaction 
that Christianity gives, is also internal 
proof. But this is not satisfactory to all, 
nor can in it be entirely satisfactory to any 
who desire to know why they believe. 
Christianity is a religion of the heart and 
of the head as well. It is a conquering 
faith, thrusting itself upon men's attention, 
compelling investigation, declaring itself 
as the only solution of life, sin and death. 
Hence the internal proof alone is not 
enough for our science, although it satis- 
fies the heart enlightened by divine grace. 
The external proof relies upon testi- 
mony and reasoning. The testimony is 
all documentary and historical, and must be 
weighed and judged in like manner with 
all such testimony, with this exception, 
that the miraculous element in Christian 
testimony can be shown to be rationally 
necessary and in no way incredible. 

CUMULATIVE EVIDENCE. 

Evidences of Christianity is cumula- 
tive. By cumulative evidence we mean an 
aggregate of facts, in many cases entirely 
independent of each other, all pointing to 



INTRODUCTION. ix. 

or assisting in the construction of one con- 
clusion. A chain or series of testimonies, 
each link of which is derived from its pre- 
decessor, is not cumulative. This chain 
will be as weak as its weakest link. But 
cumulative evidence is a center of proof, 
the result of many lines of testimony, each 
of which is admissible and independent, 
and all focusing in the one triumphant 
conclusion. Such a system of proof furn- 
ishes the strongest ground of belief. If 
an opponent should attack one of the lines 
of proof, the fact that there are others con- 
verging with it to its conclusion, makes it 
so much the stronger to sustain an assault. 
Injury done to one line of proof counts for 
little so long as the others stand. All must 
be assailed and destroyed before their con- 
clusion can be denied. Circumstantial 
evidence, if it have this character, and if 
there be enough of it, becomes stronger 
than any other kind of evidence; because 
it is impossible to invent a number of in- 
dependent circumstances and make them 
so connected as to amount to the proof of 
the point without introducing a tremend- 



x. 1NTR0D UCTION. 

ous possibility of mistake or falsehood 
contradicting the main issue, i 

SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY. 

The subject-matter treated will include 
the Proof of the Divine Existence, the Prob- 
ability of a Supernatural Revelation, the 
Possibility and Probability of Miracles, the 
Authenticity of the Old Testament, the 
Testimony of Roman Historians, the Gen- 
uineness and Credibility of the New Testa- 
ment Writings, the Character of Jesus, the 
Resurrection, Paul, the Monuments and 
Rise of the Church, Evidence from Pro- 
phecy, the Moral Excellence of Christian- 
ity and the Evidence from Experience. 

THE AIM. 

The aim of Evidences of Christianity 
is not directly to change the hearts, but to 
convince the minds of its students. And 
yet the heart cannot be closed to the win- 
ning power of Jesus Christ, however intel- 
lectually He may be studied. 2 In this study 
every student is on trial. 

"The end in view is not to remove scep- 
tical doubts, but to gain a clear conviction 

1 See article on Evidence in Encyclopedia Britannica. 

2 Fisher's Manual.— p 8. 



I XT ROD UCTIOX. xi. 

of duty. We do not divest ourselves of all 
belief in the divinity of Christianit}^ and 
then seek to prove it. But retaining all 
that we now believe of this institution, we 
confidently expect to feel ourselves more 
and more in the presence of the best, no- 
blest, wisest and mightiest work of God that 
is revealed to men. We expect to see 
Christ so clearl}^ that the divinity of Christ- 
ianit}" shall be as self evident as the shin- 
ing of the sun." i 



1 Lecture of W, H. Campbell, t).D., of Rutgers College, 1883. 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 



THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHRISTIANITY proclaims itself a su- 
pernatural religion of which theAbso- 
lute Deity is the author. Many writers on 
Evidences of Christianity assume the Di- 
vine Existence as a truth established by 
natural theology; or they prove Christian- 
ity to be a divine revelation and hence, 
through this proof, clear away all doubt as 
to the Divine Existence. It seems better 
to us, at the beginning of our treatise, to 
present the arguments for the existence of 
God. While this is not a part of the his- 
torical proof of Christianity, it certainly 
will aid us in considering probabilities and 
preventing objections all along the line. If 
this being of God can be morally proved, 



THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 13 

we then can "show cause" for all that is to 
follow. 

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 

Anselm of Canterbury presented this 
argument in substance as follows: We 
have the idea of a most perfect being. 
Nothing greater than this can be conceiv- 
ed. But this something must exist in re 
as well as in conceptu. For if it exists 
only in conceptu, then something greater 
than it could be conceived and that as be- 
ing actual existence also, which is contra- 
dictory. Therefore that "something" does 
not exist in conceptu only, but also in re. 
Anselm implies that if the most perfectly 
conceivable being does not exist, then we 
can conceive of one who is still greater in 
his existence, and this is contradictory. 

Descartes also presents this argument 
somewhat as follows: "In proportion to 
the clearness of the idea is the evidence 
that it actual^ represents an objective re- 
ality. But one of the clearest and most prom- 
inent ideas actually possessed by man, is 
the idea of one infinitely perfect being. "i 

This argument is open to criticism. It 

1, Outlines of Theology. ..Hodge.. -p 18. 



14 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

has been rightly maintained that logical 
necessity does not prove objective reality, i 
Admitting that the idea of a perfect some- 
thing is logically necessary, this offers no 
ground from which we can certainly step 
to reality. 

But the Ontological argument has very 
important use. Dr. Samuel Clarke recast it 
to meet the Knglish Pantheists; and to-day 
it is one of the legitimate arguments, for it 
removes logical doubts. That the idea 
of God is a logical necessity we stoutly 
maintain; and although there is un- 
proved substantiality, still the argument 
prepares for the result of the inductive 
arguments — the existence of God is be- 
lievable. 

We conclude this a priori argument with 
the query: Does not the idea of God prove 
His substantial reality when self-existence 
is involved? 

THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 

Aristotle, among the ancients, and 
Thomas Aquinas, among Christian philoso- 
phers, are the ablest advocates of this 
argument. The sequences of the universe 

l. Stearns' Evidence of Christian Experience., -p 41. 



THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 15 



are effects, the causes of which are often 
discernible and fully agreed upon by all. 
We are obliged to assume a cause for all 
the sequences of the universe, and for the 
universe itself. Nothing can come into 
being without cause; the contrary is an 
absurdity. Now if this be so, then a cause 
which does not come into being, but always 
ii' <is, an uncaused cause, must exist. Hence 
a first cause caused the universe. If 
there were no final cause, this universe 
would be like a chain "hanging on nothing. " 

Our only direct knowledge of first cause 
is in our own consciousness. We are im- 
mediately conscious of ourselves as the 
cause of our volitions or free choices. So- 
ciety holds us responsible for them. We 
approve or condemn ourselves for them, 
because we are the free and final cause of 
these choices. Thus we have the category 
of free, first cause in our constant experi- 
ence. Therefore reasoning from self, the 
only first cause of which we know is a free 
cause, nor can we conceive of a first cause 
unless it is a free cause. There must be 
then a first, free cause of our universe. 
This cause must be either personal or im- 



16 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

personal. But among other things in this 
universe are intelligent persons. These 
have to be accounted for among the other 
effects; and an adequate cause only can ac- 
count for them. Therefore the first, free 
cause must be personal. 

Our greatest agnostic, Herbert Spen- 
cer, at the close of his Synthetic Philoso- 
phy, says: "But one truth must grow 
ever clearer — the truth that there is an In- 
scrutable Kxistence everywhere manifest- 
ed, to which he" (the thoughtful observer) 
"can neither find nor conceive either begin- 
ning or end. Amid the mysteries which 
become the more mysterious the more they 
are thought about, there will remain the 
one absolute certainty, that he is ever in 
presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, 
from which all things proceed." 

This view is quite melancholy no doubt 
to our friends the agnostics; but it fur- 
nishes a comforting conclusion to the Cos- 
mological Argument. 

TELEOIvOGICAL ARGUMENT 

John Stuart Mill says that the argu- 
ment from design is a genuine inductive 



THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 17 

argument, and that proof from design is 
not random but universal. * 

The order and adaptation of nature is 
the ground of this argument. Socrates 
illustrated it by a statue. 

All works of man are by design, reveal- 
ing more or less the perfection of the 
designer. All natural things are discov- 
ered to be designed, i. e., there is in their 
structure and adaptability to each other 
a plan working toward an end. There- 
fore we conclude, a mind has designed 
them. "He that planted the ear shall he 
not hear?" B} r the same inductive process 
by which we believe in gravitation we be- 
lieve in a design. 

In nature we see only subordinate 
ends, but as when we see a spoke we are 
forced to assume its design, not in itself but 
in a wheel, and then still further its design 
in the organism of the wagon; so by the 
same foresight we are compelled to assume 
a final end planned by an intelligence. 

Science assumes that nature is the em- 
bodiment of thought, else science itself 
would ever be chaotic. The human thinker 

1 See Fisher's Natural Theology, p 20- 



18 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

endeavors to unravel the mysteries of 
the earth, air, sea, sky, etc., and present 
these data in rational order. What is he 
doing but discovering an adjustment 
which he never made but only reproduced? 
He enjoys it; comprehends it in a measure; 
finds it suitable to his thought. He did 
not design it. Could it be designed by a 
being less than man or equal to man? The 
thoughtful mind does not leap, but takes a 
necessary step. An infinite mind designed 
it. 

Does the theory of Evolution invali- 
date this argument? 

Evolution is a present-day theory stand- 
ing over against creation of species in 
special acts by a sovereign creator. Evolu- 
tion assumes that each species is evolved 
from the preceding species, either by 
a sudden change or by very gradual ten- 
dency to variation with force of heredity 
perpetuating this. All are derived from a 
few simple forms. The evolving process 
is from the simple to the complex. Their 
surviving or perishing is by natural selec- 
tion, or, as Spencer terms it, "the survival 
of the fittest. " Such a theory true or false 



THE DIVINE EXISTENCE. 19 

in no wa} r invalidates the Teleological Argu- 
ment. Indeed there are some thinkers 
who claim that evolution itself is teleologi- 
cal. "Notwithstanding the seeming suc- 
cess which temporarily marked the first as- 
sault of the theory of natural selection 
on the doctrine of final causes, it is now be- 
coming more and more evident every day 
that the attempt to explain the universe 
and all it contains in a purely mechanical 
fashion as the fortuitous outcome of the col- 
lision of the blind forces, has completely 
failed; and that the theory of Evolution is 
hopelessly incompetent to solve even the 
simplest biological problems without ulti- 
mately falling back on a teleological 
conception of the world."* 

Evolution only shifts the question. 
Why is this heredity and tendency to vari- 
ations? Why Correlation? Do not these 
so-called laws prove that wisdom is in the 
plan? Is not natural selection as a law the 
function of a mind and a will? The "fit- 
test" is that which has been endowed with 
fitness for the destined end. If adaptation 
to environment helps to form varieties, 
then there is evidence of design in envi- 

1 Maher's Psychology, p 526. 



20 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ronment. How did it get there? Is the en- 
vironment a thoughtful being? Is it not 
more rational to believe that a thoughtful 
being formed it for an end? 

MORAL ARGUMENT. 

The Moral Argument proceeds from the 
conscience of man and its recognition of 
the obligation to obey holy law. No one 
will deny the premise. Conscience and 
obligation to obey the moral law are uni- 
versally admitted. Obedience to the moral 
demand will bring its sure reward, disobe- 
dience will result in penalty. The moral 
order can be accounted for only on the 
ground of a moral Governor. Chance is 
an absurd explanation. It cannot be ex- 
plained by the civil law, nor by social con- 
sent, for these derive their authority by an 
appeal to moral law or right principle. 
Evolution assumes that somewhere in the 
cosmic process, the ethical or moral process 
arose. But this does not account for its 
cause. No explanation explains, no as- 
sumption is adequate, except that of a 
moral being who is perfectly holy. 

"Through the operations of conscience 



THE DIVINE EXISTENCE 21 

we discern that we are subject to a right- 
eous lawgiver who rewards and punishes. 
We are brought into contact with the moral 
attitude of the Being in whom we live and 
move. There is within us an immediate, 
undeniable testimony to His holiness and 
righteousness." i 

The Moral Argument is considered by 
many writers on natural theology to be the 
strongest of all the proofs of the divine 
existence. Many who object to the Cosmo- 
logical assent to the Moral. Dr. Wm. H. 
Campbell of Rutgers College, speaking of 
these, said: "The arguments for the being 
of God ought to be well weighed, and I 
have no hard names for an honest doubter. 
Hence I do not care how many hard knocks, 
and good hard ones too, great reasoners 
may give these arguments. If the Cosmo- 
logical Argument cannot stand, then let it 
fall under the blows, and no tears may be 
shed, for we still have left the citadel of the 
Moral Argument which they believe to be 
impregnable. " However, Dr. Campbell 
himself defended the Cosmological Argu- 
ment. We believe that the Cosmological 

1 Fisher's Manual of Natural Theology. . . p 62. 



22 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

and Moral arguments are closely associat- 
ed ; starting from different premises both 
reach their conclusion by means of the 
metaphysic of first cause. 

The Ontological Argument makes Di- 
vine Existence credible; the Cosmological 
proves a first cause who is a being; the 
Teleological proves an intelligent, rational 
being who designs and destines the uni- 
verse; and the Moral Argument proves 
that there is a holy, absolute, just being. 
This proof is not perfect demonstration, 
but from different premises points us to 
one conclusion so probable that it amounts 
to certainty. 



CHAPTER II. 



REVELATION. 

REVELATION, as an act, is the direct 
communication of truth from God to 
man. There is a certain knowledge of God, 
as an existent being, through nature, but 
this is not revelation; the hand of divine 
providence may clearly be discerned in the 
course of history, but this is the result of 
an induction, Revelation, as claimed in 
and from the Scriptures, is the body of 
truth which God has made known to men 
by miraculous means; it could not have 
been given in any other way, and it relates 
indirectly or directly to men's moral and 
spiritual welfare. Inspiration is the oper- 
ation of the Holy Spirit, by which men 
were impelled to publish revelation and 
were guarded from error in doing it. For 



24 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

example, the Law was a revelation given 
of God to Moses at Sinai, and he was in- 
spired to write it accurately in a book. 
That there is such a revelation rests upon 
evidential grounds. No one denies that 
the Bible exists. How did it originate? 
Christianity claims — by revelation as stat- 
ed above. i We clear the way to direct 
proof by showing that such a revelation is 
possible, probable and necessary to man's 
well being. 

REVELATION IS POSSIBLE. 

We have concluded that the infinite 
God is a rational, moral being. But man 
also is rational and moral, capable of im- 
parting rational and moral intelligence. 
The possibility of revelation from the infi- 
nite to the finite at once becomes apparent. 
Even such an opponent of revelation as 
Feuerbach, says: "With idea of the exist- 
ence of God is connected the idea of reve- 
lation.'^ The objector to the possibility of 
revelation must remove the infinitude of 
God, if he is to maintain his point. 

In treating Revelation and the Divine 

1 LUKE 1:70, HEB. 1:1, 2nd PETER 1:21. 

2 Essence of Christianity... EVANS Trans.. .p 263. 

Fauerbach terms this "the illusion of the religious 
consciousness." 



REVELATION. 25 



Existence, we are not reasoning in a circle, 
i. e., proving the former from the latter and 
then the latter from the former. The Bible 
does not demonstrate the Divine Existence, 
it onl} r assumes the foolishness of the con- 
trary. Our purpose here is to clear away 
all obstacles in the way of the future pre- 
sentation of the Scriptures as the reve- 
lation of God to man. 

REVELATION IS PROBABLE. 

The mythologies of all ancient peoples 
rest upon the belief that supernatural 
beings can communicate with natural. 
Amid all the wrecks and decay of tradition, 
this fibre of truth remains, that man in 
the dawn of history must have had sure 
basis of fact for this universal belief. It is 
most highly probable that the creator of a 
race of rational beings would for the en- 
lightenment and advance of His creatures, 
reveal Himself to them. The unity and 
order of the universe seem to need this. 
Man is not like a planet; but is free, and 
yearns for God. Were man not sinful we 
have every reason to believe that this long- 
ing would still exist until revelation had 
satisfied it. 



26 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But the curse of sin is upon man and 
nothing in nature can allay its agony. 
There is the feeling of guilt, and the desire 
that this pang shall be removed. There is 
the searching of the soul to find a way of 
forgiveness, and a cry for help because of 
the tyranny of sin. There is the craving for 
something after this life, for a place of rest 
and freedom from the woes of this earth. 
There is the fond desire, "this longing after 
immortality. " There is the instinct or 
habit of prayer. If this is habit, it must 
have had a ground, either instinctive or 
revealed, from whence it arose. There is 
the need of more than human help in time 
of sorrow and death. 

GOD IS MERCIFUL. 

If God is a moral being, and we have 
shown that He must be, then mercy is one 
of His attributes. The deplorable condition 
of the human race in its sinful state, al- 
most presumes the revelation of some 
means of relief on the part of a merciful 
God. In no way responsible for the sin 
of His free creatures, it is highly prob- 
able that He will not leave them to drift 
onward to an inexorable judgment. 



REVELATION. 27 



Even heathen themselves have con- 
cluded that God spared evil men, to give 
them opportunity for repentance. 

REVELATION IS NECESSARY. 

Apart from the needs of sinful man, 
the human race would need Revelation. 
Reverence to God is absolutely necessary 
to normal relations between the creator and 
the creature. But man could never know 
how to titty reverence God if it were not 
revealed to him. Again, duty in general, 
though recognized, is often vague and ob- 
scure, Conscience needs aid and guidance 
for its perfecting. It is unlikely that God 
would leave His moral creatures to a life 
of moral uncertainty. Revelation alone 
can satisfy the problem. 

As we shall see hereafter, Christianity 
alone of all the claimants to a revelation 
meets all these needs, satisfies every moral 
demand, yea, gives far beyond every nat- 
ural craving, and proves itself the only 
revealed religion. There are truths in 
other religions, but Christianity will ev- 
idence that it is the revealed truth. 



CHAPTER III. 



MIRACLES. 



SUFFICIENT CAUSE IN DIVINE EXISTENCE. 

/"A HE belief in an infinite God, who will 
J- most probably reveal Himself to His 
intelligent creatures, gives sufficient cause 
for miracles. In tjiis chapter we shall 
show just and sufficient cause. 

The testimony of human consciousness 
is that we can work changes in the phys- 
ical world; not by thwarting nor over- 
throwing natural law, but by imposing a 
higher law, i. e., the law of our free author- 
ity, upon the course of natural law. I throw 
my bunch of ke}^s into the air. I do not 
violate nor suspend the law of gravitation; 
but while the keys are going upward a 
higher law is for the moment imposed 
upon the natural law. The same power 



MIRACLES. 29 



must be granted to the infinite God. His 
existence is sufficient cause for the histor- 
ical Miracles. 

SUFFICIENT CAUSE IN NEED OF 
REVELATION. 

We have seen that man needs Revela- 
tion. But Revelation cannot be without 
miraculous attestation. Natural law is the 
ordinary way by which the course of tem- 
poral things moves onward. No divine 
revelation can come through this means to 
meet the issue of sin, guilt and death. 
Nature must ever be helpless in their pres- 
ence. The world needs the conviction of a 
personal God to help and save. Such a 
being must reveal Himself as superior to 
nature. Man would never believe, with am T 
ground of hope, in a saving God if He had 
not revealed His way of salvation b} T 
miracles. That an infinitely good God 
should reveal Himself and His plan of sal- 
vation to His creatures by miraculous proof 
is a most rational belief. When credible, 
unimpeached witnesses testify to the Res- 
urrection of Jesus, and the human heart 
and hopes evidence the rational need of 



30 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the Revelation which this event forever 

attests, then this miracle of all miracles 

becomes the most believable fact of 
history. 

PANTHEISTIC OBJECTIONS. 

Spinoza denied the possibility of mira- 
cles on the ground that God and nature 
are identical. "The virtue and power of 
nature are the virtue and power of God, 
the laws of nature are the decrees of God. 
Therefore we must conclude that nature is 
infinite, and her laws are so made that 
they extend to everything which is con- 
ceived by the Divine Nature itself." This 
philosophy leaves no room for miracles, for 
if nature extends to all possible events no 
miracle can take place. Many evolution- 
ists of modern times stand in Spinoza's 
shadow. 

This argument against the possibilit} r 
of miracles falls with the philosophy upon 
which it is built. Pantheism denies alike 
the personality of God and man. It defies 
our consciousness that we are personal 
beings. It goes under, before the assault 
of the argument for the existence of God, 
which proves a Creator who is a moral 



MIRACLES. 31 



person apart from His works. It is utterly 
wrecked on the rocky problem of sin, which 
it must either deny or identify as an attri- 
bute of God. 

hume's objection. 

David Hume is the most celebrated an- 
tagonist of miracles. While Spinoza deni- 
ed their possibility, Hume denied their 
credibility, claiming that no amount of 
testimony could prove a miracle. 

"A miracle is a violation of the laws of 
nature; and as a firm and unalterable experi- 
ence has established these laws, the proof 
against a miracle from the very nature of 
the fact is as entire as any argument from 
experience can possibly be imagined. And 
if so it is an undeniable consequence that 
it cannot be surmounted by any proof 
whatever from testimony, "i "The only 
case in which the evidence for the miracle 
could prevail, would be that in whi£h the 
falseness or error of the attesting witnesses 
would be a greater miracle than the mira- 
cle they afnrm/'2 Hume would say, you 

1 Hopkins on Hume. 

2 See Trench on Hume; also Hume's Essay on Miracles. 

pp 128 and 144. 



32 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

must assume a miracle to prove a miracle. 
hume's fallacy. 

Hume begs the question, i. e., he as- 
sumes in his premise something not yet 
proved and indeed the very conclusion 
which he sets out to prove. He says you 
cannot prove what is contrary to the inva- 
riability of nature, which, he assumes, a 
miracle is. This is the very point to be 
proved. A miracle is not the violation of 
the laws of nature, but a new and supreme 
cause producing a new and miraculous 
effect. We have shown sufficient cause for 
such effects; hence, Hume's argument, 
aimed at the "nature" side, entirely misses 
the mark, which is not nature at all but a 
superior power who manifests His energy 
above nature. Hume's argument can have 
weight only with those who deny that God 
exists or with those who claim that if He 
does exist it can never be manifest to us. 

Again, as J. S. Mill has shown, "the 
evidence for the unbroken uniformity of 
nature is diminished in force by whatever 
weight belongs to the evidence that cer- 
tain miracles have taken place:"i and 

1 Fisher's Manual, p 16. 



MIRACLES. 33 



Hume himself admits in a note after his 
essay, that there may be miracles of such a 
kind as to admit of proof from human tes- 
timony, though he denies this quality of 
the Bible miracles. i 

Again, our belief in the uniformity of 
nature is the result of testimony, and Dr. 
Mark Hopkins exposes the whole sophism 
of Hume as follows: "Hume uses the term 
experience in two senses. Personal ex- 
perience is the knowledge we have acquir- 
ed by our own senses. General experience 
is that knowledge of facts which has been 
acquired by the race. If, therefore, Hume 
says a miracle is contrary to his personal 
experience, that proves nothing; but if he 
says it is opposed to universal experience, 
that, as has been said, begs the question. " 

RATIONALISTIC OBJECTIONS. 

From Julian the Apostate down to 
Prof. Huxley and his following of rational- 
istic Kvolutionists, it has been claimed that 
miracles are nothing more than the work- 
ing out of some law of nature itself by 
superior insight. They all rely upon the 
dogma of the "constant mode of operation 

1 Hopkins' Evidences of Christianity, p 36. 



34 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in natural things/' but fail to consider the 
great moral cause of supernatural or mirac- 
ulous changes of which we have spoken 
above. This objection on the part of the 
Evolutionists proves too much. Many 
miracles and those best attested would re- 
quire such a superior insight into the 
workings of natural law, that the insight 
would be miraculous. 

SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 

The present-day objection to belief in 
miracles is based upon scientific grounds. 
One who stands to-day at the height of 
ethical scholarship says: "But with the 
triumph of the scientific mode of thought, 
which starts from the hypothesis of the 
universal reign of law and then seeks to 
verify it in particular cases, the intellect 
has come to rebel somewhat strongly 
against miracles and magic. ***** 
There are riddles, says science, which we 
cannot as yet solve, but there are no mir- 
acles, no occurrences which exclude, in 
principle, the possibility of a natural ex- 
planation. " 

"The Bible miracles are no exception 



MIRACLES. 35 



to this rule; they belong to a category of 
world-views which has disappeared and 
cannot long survive them." 

"Besides it may perhaps be shown that 
miracles not only contradict the scientific 
conception of our age, but also the spirit of 
our religious faith. The} 7 really belong to 
the polytheistic stage in the evolution of 
Theism; gods work miracles, God works 
no miracles. * * * God alone is an in- 
dependent being, all things are and 
exist not in themselves, but in Him; or 
according to Spinoza's formula: God is the 
substance, the things are the modifications 
of His essence. * * * Whoever takes 
monotheism seriously, whoever regards 
the difference between monotheism and 
polytheism not as a numerical difference, 
but as a difference in the divine essence, 
and does not look upon God as the only 
survivor of a great host of gods, whoever 
interprets monotheism to mean that God 
alone truly exists, cannot at the same time 
believe without contradicting himself, that 
He reveals Himself in miracles and 
signs." i 

Prof. Paulsen writes the above rever- 

1 See Paulsen's Ethics, Thilly's trans, pp 435 and 436. 



36 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ently and with a desire to preserve the 
Christian faith. We think the quotations 
fairly open up his view, although not ex- 
hausting it. 

ETHICAL ANSWER. 

This is perhaps the best represen- 
tative modern attack from one who would 
hold the faith and drop all belief in the 
miraculous. It may be met upon ethical 
grounds. Its impeachment of Jesus and 
the disciples, either on account of their 
wilfulness or ignorance in deception, is so 
marked, that all the moral basis of Christ- 
ianity is gone. The New Testament mir- 
acles were believed and recorded as facts 
by the disciples of Jesus. Prof. Paulsen 
says: *'It may be that miracles and signs 
were once needed to strengthen the faith of 
the Church; at present they merely dis- 
credit it." He evidently means that be- 
lief in the miracles was needed. But faith 
must have facts beneath it; and we need 
belief in those historical facts just as truly 
now as did the Apostolic or Middle-age 
Christians. 

HISTORICAL ANSWER. 

Another feature of this scientific objec- 



MIRACLES. 37 



tion is eliminated upon historical grounds. 
The Jews were intensely monotheistic after 
the exile. Four hundred years of most pro- 
nounced monotheism preceded the mira- 
cles of Jesus Christ and His disciples. 
Their age was the most abundantly mira- 
culous the world ever has seen. Monothe- 
ism had attained its purest form — then 
came the New Testament miracles. 

SCIENTIFIC ANSWER. 

But the final answer to the scientific 
attack upon the miracles must be also upon 
scientific ground. The weapon in the 
hand of the hostile scientist is "the r^po- 
thesis of the universal reign of law." But 
its blow falls upon the impenetrable shield 
of evidence both from history and experi- 
ence, a portion of which we try to bring to 
light in the remainder of this book. The 
"hypothesis" confronts tremendous facts 
from an array of credible witnesses. The 
"fn^pothesis" again, as in Hume's day, begs 
the question. The testimony of the wit- 
nesses allied with the Divine Existence and 
the cravings of lost men, the character of 
Jesus, the fulfilment of prophecy, the mon- 



38 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

uments of those ages, scientifically applied 
to the "hypothesis," overbalance it. Prof. 
Paulsen has no more power against this 
tangible proof than had David Hume or 
Baruch de Spinoza. 

EARLY OPPONENTS. 

"The history of opinions about miracles 
must be startling to those who deny the 
miracles of Scripture. The nearer we ap- 
proach the century in which Jesus lived, 
the less denial do we find. The Jews all 
believed that the Old Testament miracles 
were genuine works of God; and not being 
able to deny the facts of Jesus' miracles, 
they ascribed them to diabolical influ- 
ences.! Later Jewish writers have affirm- 
ed that Christ possessed, by fraud, the 
secret and infallible name of Deity, and 
thereby wrought His miracles. 

"Celsus, the first great opponent of 
Christianity, ascribed the Christian mira- 
cles to magic. He does not deny them. 
Julian the Emperor admits that Paul 
worked miracles, and ascribes them to a 
superior knowledge of nature. 

"These are the most noted opponents of 

1 MATT. 13: 24, MARK 3: 22-27. 



MIRACLES. 39 



Christianity before the year 363 A. d. Tf 
the fact of the miracles could have been 
denied would they have admitted it?"i 

PRESUMPTION AGAINST MIRACLES 
REMOVED. 

From these considerations we draw the 
conclusion that instead of an antecedent 
presumption against miracles, there is 
enough presumption for them, both as to 
their possibility and probabilty, to remove 
all a priori objections, and place them upon 
the basis of any ordinary historical fact, 
capable of being evidenced by historical 
proof. 



1 Pres. W. H. Campbell's lecture, 1883. 



CHAPTER IV. 



PROOF OF MIRACLES FROM 
COMMON GROUND. 



THE COMMON GROUND. 

NO competent critic will question that 
Paul wrote certain epistles. Romans, 
First and Second Corinthians and Gala- 
tians, are accepted as genuine Pauline 
writings even by those who deny the cred- 
ibility of miracles. Hence then, in these 
epistles we all can stand upon a common 
ground: and must accept conclusions 
drawn logically from them. 

paul's miracles in romans. 

In Romans 15: 18, 19 Paul writes: 
"For I will not dare to speak of any things 
save those which Christ wrought through 



PROOF FROM COMMON GROUND. 41 

me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by 
word and deed, in the power of signs and 
wonders, in the power of the Holy Ghost." 
The signs and wonders, according to all 
New Testament usage, were miracles, i 
Paul will speak only of those things which 
were proved to be of God through his mira- 
cles. In other words, Paul risked his 
whole religious system on the fact of his 
miracles. Now these Romans had never 
met him, up to this time, in their capacity 
as a church; yet such is Paul's confidence 
in the evidence for his miracles, that he 
attests his Gospel by them. These Roman 
Jews and Gentiles were a metropolitan 
people, not easily deluded. No treatise of 
antiquity possesses more depth of thought 
and keenness of logic than the epistle ad- 
dressed to these people. They were credit- 
ed by Paul with an earnest reasonableness 
that commands admiration. Would Paul 
dare to assert his miracles to such a socie- 
ty if such miracles were not above all 
question? 

In Second Corinthians 12:12 Paul writes: 
"Truly the signs of an apostle were 
wrought among }^ou in all patience, by 

1 See Meyer on this passage. 



42 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

signs and wonders and mighty works." 
Here he plainly calls the Corinthians to 
witness that he worked miracles among 
them. If ever a reformer, spreading a new 
doctrine, was put to the test such a one 
was Paul at Corinth. His hearers were the 
former ruler of the Synagogue, Crispus, a 
Jew, who gave up his dearest idol, his old 
faith, to embrace Christianity, Sosthenes, 
also a synagogue-ruler, and Krastus the 
city-chamberlain, a high official. Though 
not many of the wise and noble, in a world- 
ly sense, were called, still the Corinthian 
Church was an enlightened and intellect- 
ual community. Would Paul have dared 
to write them such words as we quote 
above, claiming to have wrought miracles, 
if all had not been absolutely convinced 
that the claim was valid? Paul's ability 
as an apostle was questioned in Corinth, 
judging from his epistle, by Judaizers who 
sought thus to undermine his authority. 
In the face of this he asserts with perfect 
confidence that he had worked miracles of 
which they were witnesses. This docu- 
mentary evidence is tantamount to the 



PROOF FROM COMMON GROUND. 43 

testimony of the entire Corinthian church 
that Paul worked miracles. 

COMMON GROUND TN THE WORDS OF JESUS. 

Even such a rationalist as Ernest 
Renan agrees that some of the words of 
Jesus and others as quoted by the Gospel 
writers are genuine. According to this 
theor}^ Renan admits that Jesus' relatives 
once said to Him: "Depart hence and go 
into Judea, that thy disciples also ma}^ see 
the works that thou doest." If these words 
are genuine how can we refuse the con- 
clusion that Jesus and His relatives agreed 
that He could do these works? Again, 
Renan says "Others, without being blamed 
by the disciples, took Him for John the 
Baptist risen from the dead, for Elias, for 
Jeremiah," etc. How was it possible for 
this opinion to prevail without miracles? 
The discourse on the "bread which cometh 
down from Heaven," which Renan admits, 
is intelligible only in view of the miracle 
of the loaves and fishes. In his "Life 
of Jesus," Renan assails the miracle of the 
raising of Lazarus, and accounts for its 
origin as follows: " 'If one was raised from 



44 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the dead perhaps the living would repent/ 
was no doubt the remark made by the 
pious sisters. 'No/ was the response of 
Jesus, 'even though one rose from the dead 
they would not be persuaded;' recalling 
next a story which was familiar to him, 
that 'of the pious beggar covered with 
sores, who died and was carried by angels 
to Abraham's bosom. 'Even should 

Lazarus return/ he might have added, 
'they would not be persuaded.' Later on 
this subject was treated with singular 
levity. The hypothesis became a fact."i 

Let it be said here, that Renan im- 
peaches Jesus and makes Him a party to a 
fraudulent story. "His conscience, through 
a fault of the people and not his own, had 
lost somewhat of its primordial sincerity." 
Renan is obliged to assume that the people 
believed in the fact of the raising of Laz- 
arus. Well, this is all that we ask. The 
attempt to construct the story out of the 
parable of Dives and Lazarus would be 
amusing were it not also saddening to wit- 
ness the puerile extremit}^ to which those who 
would naturalize the miracles of Jesus are 
driven. If the people in Jerusalem, includ- 

1 Kenan's Life of Jesus. Ch. 2°. 



PROOF FROM COMMON GROUND. 45 

ing Jesus' enemies and bitterest foes, who 
were plotting His death, believed this tes- 
timony, that Jesus raised Lazarus, while 
the living subject of the miracle was but 
fifteen furlongs off, who can doubt the 
evidence? 

PRESENT-DAY MI R ACLES. 

The discussion of the miracles alleged 
to have been wrought in the middle ages 
and also in more recent times has been 
used as a foil to discredit the Bible mira- 
cles, i We notice this in passing, although 
it does not strictly belong to our argument. 
The miracles of Scripture were wrought in 
an age when other miracles were claimed by 
some writers who contradict Christian- 
ity. But these other so-called miracles are 
clearly distinguished from those of sacred 
writ. Hence, as we must expect counter- 
feits after the genuine has been issued, 
so we must expect these medieval and 
modern claims to miracles. 

But all miracles must submit to test. 
Jesus asked His enemies to judge His 
works. Are these alleged post-scripture 
miracles able to stand the test? Are they 

1 Paulsen's Ethics, p 333. 



46 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

wrought to substantiate a revelation from 
God, which will bear recording, and stand as 
the accepted Word of God to men? Since 
Jesus through His disciples has given the 
entire Gospel, "the power of God unto sal- 
vation to everyone that berieveth," and has 
confirmed it all by means of miracles, are 
any more miracles necessary? Are not 
these superfluous? Even those which have 
been wrought, as is alleged, by pious Christ- 
ians, add nothing to Revelation. We claim 
the regeneration of the soul as a miracle, 
but this is wrought by the Holy Spirit. 
That God will work miracles in the con- 
summation of the ages, we truly believe. 
But until our Lord comes again, in view of 
the power of the Gospel, we cannot accept 
even the need of miracles. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE 
OLD TESTAMENT 



USE OF TERMS. 

^nr^HERE being no fixed terminology 
-J- among the teachers of Evidences of 
Christianity, we have settled upon the fol- 
lowing usage for this book: The genuine- 
ness of a book means that it was written 
by the author to whom it is ascribed in the 
canon of Scripture. Authenticity means 
that the subject-matter of the book is true 
and in accordance with fact. Credibility 
is applied to the writers and their wit- 
nesses, and means that W\ey are trust- 
worthy and competent. Credibility is 



48 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sometimes applied to the testimony; if so 
used, it will be so indicated. Integrity 
means that the book as it appears in the 
canon of Scripture, is substantially the 
same as the original document. 

FORMERLY UNCORROBORATED. 

"Until very recently the greater part of 
Old Testament history stood alone."* 
Formerly the historical statements of the 
Old Testament were believed because they 
were Biblical. The Bible evidenced itself 
as the Word of God, produced effects like 
those of no other book, and declared itself 
to be given by inspiration; therefore the 
believing mind accepted its historical state- 
ments as true. 

But this history was almost entirely 
uncorroborated. Josephus wrote as he 
read from Scripture and cognate Jewish 
books, and therefore adds no weight to 
their testimony. Herodotus, the "Father of 
History," died about 400 B. C. He wrote 
the history of the Graeco-Persian wars, and. 
being the first philosophical historian, trac- 
ed the causes of this struggle backward, 
and thus gives an account of the history 

1 Dr. A. H. Sayce, in Homiletic Review. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 49 

of the world. This is not given as accurate 
history but as a substratum for his own 
work. He begins accurate history where the 
Hebrew historians left off. All the tradi- 
tions found in the Greek classics com- 
menced when the Greeks were brought 
into contact with the Asiatic nations. The3 r 
neither helped nor hindered to any extent 
the trustworthiness of the Hebrew nar- 
ratives. 

RISE OF HIGHER CRITICISM. 

Intense study of the Scriptures, without 
the fellowship of spiritual life accompany- 
ing it, produced Jewish Rabbinism in Jesus' 
day; likewise the critical investigation of 
the books of the Old Testament, and the 
endeavor to reconstruct its history and the 
origin of the individual books in harmony 
with the theory of evolution, have produc- 
ed Higher Criticism. 

No literature corroborated the histori- 
cal statements of Scripture; therefore the 
principles of criticism were at libert} T to be 
emplo3 r ed in the rearrangement or destruc- 
tion of Old Testament history. Many of 
the narratives were called legends with no 



50 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

historical validity. Others were labeled 
pious frauds, invented by good men in the 
interest of their religion. Moses was de- 
clared incapable of writing the Pentateuch; 
and the histories of Samuel were pro- 
nounced full of errors. 

"False in one, false in all," has ever 
been the cry of the hostile critic; and how- 
ever illbgieally this formula has been ap- 
plied to the Old Testament, the fact re- 
mains that the common mind of Christen- 
dom feels the shock of every denial of 
accuracy to the Word of God. If the Bible 
is false in its histories, the truth-loving 
mind will ever be baffled in reconciling 
this fact with the claim that inspired men 
wrote it. 

RISE OF ARCHEOLOGY. 

When hostile criticism had done its 
worst, archeology came forward; and with 
gigantic strides and sweeping blows clear- 
ed the field of the foe, and showed us 
once more the citadel of Christian faith un- 
injured. Archeology does not take the 
place of OldTestament history, but corrobor- 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 51 

ates some of its most important statements. 
It corrects misapprehension, silences the 
lire of hostile criticism, and leads us logi- 
cally to assume with confidence that all its 
history is correct. 

In 18S7, at Tel el Arnarna, Egypt, a de- 
posit of clay tablets was found inscribed 
with cuneiform characters. Previous ad- 
vance in the study of cuneiform letters had 
prepared scholars capable of reading the 
tablets with comparative accuracy. The 
study of the ancient languages of the 
nations of the Nile valle} 7 and of the Meso- 
potamian bed had become a recognized 
branch of Old Testament learning. These 
tablets proved, upon examination, to be 
letters sent to the government of Egypt by 
the kings of Babylonia, Ass3^ria, Canaan, 
Cappadocia, and from chiefs of the nomadic 
tribes of Arabia. These letters show a 
high degree of intellectual and literal cult- 
ure common to all the people, soldiers, 
merchants, etc.; and the date being a cen- 
tury before the Exodus, no proof is want- 
ing that Moses could have written the Pen- 
tateuch. 



52 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



MONUMENTAL VINDICATION. 

Many historical statements of the Old 
Testament have been vindicated. The 
campaign of the Eastern kings as record- 
ed in Gen. 14 was treated by the critics as 
a late production and unhistorical;i now 
all the names of these Eastern kings are 
found, some of them inscribed by them- 
selves, and in such relations that all the 
events of the campaign told by Moses, 
point to an author who knew of the early 
Mesopotamian supremacy in Palestine. 
Letters of Amraphel have been found by 
Dr. Scheil which were written after that 
king had thrown off the yoke of the king of 
Elam, "on the day of Kudur-Loghghar- 
mar's defeat. " 

In Assyria, tablets have been found, 
giving the facts of history and politics in 
and before the times of Abraham. "Ur of 
the Chaldees" has been discovered, and in 
connection with its history, its monuments 
mention such names as Abiramu, Jacob-el, 
Joseph-el only one generation before the 
appearance of "Abram the Hebrew." 

The archeological discoveries prove the 

1 See Kuenen's Hexateuch, Wicksteed's trans, p 324. 
See Dillmann's Genesis, vol. 2, pp 32, 33. 
See Homiletic Review, March, 1897. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 53 

Old Testament to be credible even in its 
details. The objection, "False in one, false 
in all," falls to the ground, when one by one 
these minute historical statements are cor- 
roborated; and the time has come when 
the writers on ancient history fear to chal- 
lenge any Old Testament statements, for 
what has already been discovered seems 
but an earnest of what is to be found. The 
Old Testament claims to be a revelation 
from God. Apart from the New Testa- 
ment, it stands self-proved as a preparation 
for a greater revelation; and its credibility, 
as such, might be established. But this is 
all that we could claim for it. 

JESUS AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

As revelation from God to as, the Old 
Testament stands or falls with the New. 
If the life and teachings of Jesus are super- 
natural revelation then the Old Testament 
is a living God-inspired book to us. 

Jesus continually appealed to the Old 
Testament as the inspired Scriptures that 
could not be broken, saying: "These are 
they which bear witness of me." Because 
all Jews, in Jesus' and the apostles' times, 



54 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

believed in the Old Testament as the Word 
of God, these writings were appealed to as 
attestations of God to the religion founded 
b} 7 the Man of Nazareth. Jesus believed 
the Books of the Law to be the wri- 
tings of Moses,* the Psalms, i. e., some of 
them, of David,2 and the prophets 3 in- 
spired of God to testify beforehand con- 
cerning Him. 

The Apostles continued in this line of 
testimony. Nearly all the apostolic ser- 
mons recorded in the Acts, certainly all 
those which were preached to Jews, are 
built upon the Old Testament. With us 
the other way of proof is stronger. We do 
not prove Jesus and His Gospel from the 
Old Testament, and then prove the Old 
Testament from Jesus, which would be 
most illogical. But we first prove Jesus 
and His Gospel to be a miraculous revela- 
tion from God; and thus find that the Old 
Testament is so interwoven into the very 
fabric of His life and teachings, that it de- 
rives its credibility as a divine book from 
Him. Believing in Him we must believe 
His historic and prophetic testimonies. 

i Matt. 19:8, Mark 12:^6, Luke 5:14, John 1:17. 

2 MATT. 22:43, MARK 12:36. 

3 MATT. 26:56, LUKE 18:31. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. .),) 
HARMONY OF THE OLD AND NEW. 

The Old and New Testaments are in 
perfect harmony concerning God's plan to 
save the world. The Old Testament proph- 
esies a nobler dispensation.! The New 
Testament declares that the Old Testa- 
ment ordinances were types of the New. 2 

The ethics of the New Testament rises 
far above that of the Old, but both came out 
of the same cardinal principle. The New 
Testament ethics is love in brighter bloom. 3 

When we consider the prophecies of 
the Old Testament, especially those which 
relate to the Messiah, and then read the his- 
toric proof of their fulfilment; when we 
consider the unchanged moral law of God 
in both Testaments; when we remember 
that the Old Testament promises the sal- 
vation offered in the New, righteousness 
by faith, 4 we can affirm that the Old Testa- 
ment is in every way a credible account of 
the revelation of God to His chosen people 
Israel, and, through Christ, to us. 



1 ISA. 60. 2 HEB. 6, 7, 9, 10. 

3 DECT. 6:5, LKVIT. 19:18. 

4 Gen. 15:6, ROM. 4:3, 5:1. 



CHAPTER VI. 



PRESUMPTION OF DOCU- 
MENTS FROM ROMAN 
HISTORIANS. 



STATEMENT OF TACITUS. 

ARE there any testimonies to Jesus from 
contemporaneous writers, and what is 
their value? 

Tacitus the historian was born about 
the middle of the first century. He wrote 
the history of Rome from the death of 
Augustus to Domitian. Accounting for the 
burning of Rome and the charge that Nero 
did it, he says:i "To suppress this common 
rumor, Nero procured others to be accused, 
and inflicted exquisite punishment upon 

1 See Furnaux on Tacitus' Ann. xv. C. 44. 



PRESUMPTION OF DOCUMENTS. 01 

those people who were in abhorrence for 
their crimes, 1 and were commonly known 
by the name of Christians. They had their 
denomination from Christus, who in the 
reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a 
criminal b}^ the procurator Pontius Pilate. 
This pernicious superstition, though check- 
ed for a while, broke out again and spread 
not only over Judea, the source of this evil, 
but reached the cit}^ also." 

We ask with all earnestness— How 
could a religion spread over Judea and at 
last reach Rome without documentary cre- 
dentials? 

STATEMENT OF SUETONIUS. 

Suetonius, another historian, lived in 
the latter part of the first centur}". Writ- 
ing of the Emperor Claudius, 41-54, he 
says: 2 "He banished the Jews from Rome 
who were constantly making disturbances, 
Chrestus being their leader." It is well 
known that Jesus is sometimes called 
"Chrestus" by heathen people in the earl} r 
ages of the Church. Again, Suetonius 
says of Nero's reign, 54-68: "The Christians 

1 Their crime was not revering but denying the Gods. 
They were also charged with infanticide, etc. 

2 Lardner's Works, vol. fi. 



58 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

were punished, a sort of men of a new and 
magical superstition. " 

TESTIMONY FROM PLINY. 

Pliny the Younger was born 61 A. D. 
In the year 100 A. D. he was a Roman Con- 
sul. While acting as governor of Bithynia 
he wrote letters to the Emperor Trajan, 
reporting his way of dealing with those 
who w^ere charged with being Christians. 
Speaking of those who were guilty of this 
crime and who at the point of punishment 
recanted, he says: 1 "They affirmed that the 
whole of their fault or error, lay in this, 
that they were wont to meet together on a 
stated day, before it was light, and sing 
among themselves alternately a hymn to 
Christ, as a God, and bind themselves by 
an oath, not tothecommissionof any wicked- 
ness, but not to be guilty of theft, or robbery, 
or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor 
to deny a pledge committed to them, when 
called upon to return it." In reply Trajan 
wrote to Pliny not to seek them out; but 
if any were charged and proved guilty they 
were to be punished. 2 

1 Letters of Pliny the Younger 96, 97. Lardner, vol. 7, p23. 

2 "Pliny's Correspondence with Trajan." Hardy, p 216. 



PRESUMPTION OF DOCUMENTS. 59 

VALUK OF THIS TESTIMONY. 

These testimonies from heathen histo- 
rians who were obliged to be hostile to the 
rising faith, clearly set forth Jesus and the 
infant church in thehistorical light, and point 
to the earl}^ belief in Him as God, and the 
powerful moral principles of His religion. 
We do not require the passage from 
Josephus, the genuineness of which is so 
keenly disputed, to prove outside of the 
New Testament, the historicalness of Jesus 
of Nazareth. 

We o-ain nothing of additional histor- 
ical value from these testimonies. These 
historians were personalty untouched by 
the Gospel, and seem to regard it with 
aversion, fearing its destructive influence 
upon their Latin civilization and societ}^; 
they instinctively feel that this"superstition" 
threatens the Roman Empire. i The value 
of this testimony to us is, that from it we 
can presume documents concerning Jesus, 
either from Him or from His followers. 

THE GREEK LANGUAGE AND THE JEWS. 

The first century was an age of highty 
developed literature. The Greek language 

1 The secret meetings of the Christians were regarded 
with suspicion that this might be another plot 
against the Emperor. 



60 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

had become the medium of public and pri- 
vate communication, . especially in the 
Mediterranean countries. Its chaste natur- 
alness^ and its possession of the best works 
of antiquity, made it the desired acquisition 
of every cultured person. The Greek lang- 
uage was firmly established in Galilee 
when Jesus appeared, preaching His king- 
dom. The common people of that age and 
country could speak and read the language. 
They were familiar with the Septuagint, 
the Greek rendering of the Old Testament. 
Josephus, born in Jerusalem in the apostol- 
ic period, 37 A. D., wrote such excellent 
Greek that Jerome calls him "Graecus Li- 
vius." Jew's had become the influential 
traders and bankers in the larger cities of 
the Kmpire. "The Jews multiplied so pro- 
digiously that the narrow bounds of Pales- 
tine could no longer contain them. They 
poured, therefore, their increasing numbers 
into the neighboring countries with such 
rapidity, that at the time of Christ's birth, 
there was scarcely a province in the Kmpire 
where they were not found carrying on 
commerce and exercising other lucrative 
arts." 1 Such a business demanded an 

1 Mosheim, vol. 1, p 24. 



PRESUMPTION FROM DOCUMENTS. 61 

ability in letters, and it is not too much to 
say, that the Jews were foremost among 
the cultured class of the first century. 

A FIRST CENTURY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 

If Jesus lived in Galilee, and gathered 
His disciples from there, it would be with 
the Greek language that they would go 
forth to spread His religion; so soon as 
they stepped outside the limits of Palestine, 
Greek would be the medium of communica- 
tion. That Jesus lived an actual historical 
character is ampty proved by these Latin 
historians; that His disciples spread His 
religion in the first century, is also a matter 
of sure secular history. If this be so, then 
the records of His life and teachings, and 
the teachings of His followers, can be pre- 
sumed with hardly the shadow of a doubt. 
There must have existed a documentary 
literature, in the form of biography, history 
or epistles, embodying the facts or beliefs 
upon which these hated Christians built 
their faith. If there were no Gospels nor 
Epistles, the unbiased archeologist would 
wonderingly ask — "Where are the docu- 
ments of Jesus and His disciples?" 



CHAPTER VII. 



GENUINENESS OE THE GOS- 
PEE ACCORDING TO JOHN, 



structure; of the new testament. 

^AHE NewTestament consists of twenty- 
seven documents, all of which are 
proved to have been written during the first 
century. Of these twenty were always re- 
ceived by the early Christian Church as 
genuine writings of apostles or apostolic 
men; and these twenty are those of most 
important bearing upon the miraculous 
life and teachings of Jesus, viz.; four 
Gospels, thirteen Epistles of Paul, the 
Acts, First John and First Peter. The 
other seven books were doubtful to some 
portions of the church; and came into the 



GENUINENESS OF JOIIX. 63 

canon after having been most clovsely ex- 
amined by every possible test, and proved 
by overwhelming evidence to be worth 3- of 
a place in the Scriptures. 

GENUINENESS, CREDIBILITY AND 
SUPKKXATUR ALNESS. 

Our study of these books will lead us 
to the following conclusions: First, that 
these writings are the works of the men to 
whom they are ascribed, i. e., their genu- 
ineness. Second, that these men and these 
writings are worthy of the fullest belief, i.e., 
their credibility. Third, that the evidence 
which they present proves that Jesus 
Christ and His Gospel are supernatural 
and the only possible ground of salvation 
for all men in all time. 

GENU IX EX ESS OF JOHN. 

We begin with the Gospel According to 
John, because it was probably the last book 
written, and because it has a peculiar line 
of both external and internal evidence. 
The Fourth Gospel has been under the fire 
of criticism, during the last generation, 
more than any other Gospel; hence a short 



64 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

study in its genuineness will form a t} 7 pe 
of the method of constructive evidence 
for the genuineness of any gospel. 

IREN^US. 

Irenseus (born 120-140, d. about 202) was 
a pupil and friend of Polycarp who was a 
pupil and friend of John the Apostle. 
Hence, Irenseus is a direct descendant, in 
the religious sense, of the Apostle; and 
having been reared in Asia, and having in 
his latter years served in Gaul in Burope, 
he is a man representative of the general 
opinion of the Church, East and West. 
Moreover he is of the highest standing as 
a historian in the estimation of Jerome, 
Tertullian, Kusebius, the Gaulish Bishops 
and many others of the age succeeding 
him. Tertullian says — "He was a diligent 
inquirer of all sorts of opinions."! The 
testimony of such a man is worthy of all 
acceptance unless it can be clearly dis- 
proved. 

Irenseus wrote clearly to set before the 
Church the fallacies of the heretical writers, 
and to reaffirm the true Johannean doc- 
trines of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. He 

1 Gardner, vol. 2, p 166. 



GENUINENESS OF JOHN. 65 

accepts beyond all dispute the Fourth 
Gospel as the genuine work of John the 
Apostle. After speaking concerning the 
first three, Irenaeus says — ''Afterwards, John 
the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned 
upon His breast, he likewise published a 
Gospel while he dwelt in Bphesus in Asia." 
"John the disciple of the Lord, being desir- 
ous, b}^ declaring the Gospel, to root out 
the errors that had been sown in the minds 
of men b> 7 Cerinthus * * * * he thus 
begins in his doctrine, which is according 
to the Gospel: 'In the beginning was the 
Word.'" 

In the letter of Irenaeus to Florinus 
(177 A. D.) he says: "For while I was yet a 
boy, I saw thee in Lower Asia with Poly- 
carp, distinguishing thyself in the ro} r al 
court, and endeavoring to gain his appro- 
bation. For I have a more vivid recollection 
of what occurred at that time, than of 
recent events; inasmuch as the experi- 
ences of childhood keeping pace with the 
growth of the soul become incorporated 
with it; so that I can even describe the 
place where the blessed Polycarp used 
to sit and discourse * * * * * also 



66 EVIDENCES OF* CHRISTIANITY. 

how he would speak of his familiar inter- 
course with John and with the rest of 
those who had seen the Lord.'' 

SUBSEQUENT TESTIMONY. 

After Irenaeus came Tertullian and 
Clement of Alexandria in the second and 
third centuries, and Origen and Busebius 
(who preserved the fragment from Irenae- 
us) in the third and fourth, all continuing 
the same unqualified testimony. This 
testimony so carefully collected and uni- 
versally received, was not assailed by any 
writer of importance until the close of the 
eighteenth century; and then by critics 
who did not possess one particle of evi- 
dence from any historical source, but 
relied wholly upon conjecture. i 

Previous to the times of Irenseus, there 
had been no need of any special historical 
declaration that the Fourth Gospel was the 
work of the Apostle John. The fact was so 
universally received that no defence of it 
was called for. We should expect however 
to find quotations and versions or trans- 
1 Godet on John. vol. 1, p 16. 



GENUINENESS OF JOHN. 67 



lations, and with these we are ampLy- 
supplied. 

TESTIMONY COTEMPORANEOUS WITH 
IRENJEUS. 

Theophilus of Antioch (cotempora- 
neous with Iretiaeus) quotes John 1:1-3 and 
mentions John as the writer. 

The Muratorian Canon, a fragment of 
which remains (160-170), is a treatise on the 
writings which were read publicly in the 
churches. The Fourth Gospel is mention- 
ed as John's. 

Before 170 A. D. two versions of the 
Gospels, translated from the Greek, werein 
circulation, the S}^riac and Latin. The 
Fourth Gospel, John's Gospel, exists in 
both. 

Tatian (155-170 A. D.) quotes from the 
Fourth Gospel, and his Diatessaron opens 
with the prologue of John's Gospel. 

Justin (who died 166 A. D.) quotes vo- 
luminously from the memoirs of the apos- 
tles, and among his quotations are some 
taken directly from John's Gospel; ''Unless 
ye are born again, ye shall not enter into 



68 EVIDENCES OF CHRLSTr ANITY. 

the Kingdom of Heaven." Justin's writ- 
ings in fact are saturated with the peculiar 
theological teachings of John's Gospel. 

TESTIMONY OF THE EARLIER GENERATION, 

POLYCARP. 

We now go back to the generation be- 
fore Irenseus. Three men who came out of 
the first centur}^ quote from John. Poly- 
carp, the Apostle's pupil, has a quotation 
from the Epistle of John. Only one letter 
of Polycarp is left us, and this is very 
brief. But one direct quotation from the 
First Epistle of John proves much. In 
genuineness the First Epistle and Gospel 
of John stand or fall together; and a quota- 
tion by Polycarp from the Epistle proves 
that the Gospel was written by one who 
lived and wrote before Polycarp. i 

PAPIAS. 

Papias was born in the first century, 
and wrote not later than 120 A. D. He re- 
ports anecdotes from the life of Jesus, de- 
riving them from those who had been with 
the disciples of the Lord. From these 
sources he records what Andrew, Peter, 

i SchafFs Apostolic Christianity, r* 704. 



GENUINENESS OF JOHN. 69 

Philip, Thomas, James, John and Matthew 
had said; and "what Aristion and the Pres- 
byter John, disciples of the Lord, say." 
Only thirty lines of the works of Papias are 
preserved by Eusebius,and we are not sur- 
prised that he does not quote directly 
from the Gospel, in these few lines; the 
chances are that he would not; but the 
order of apostolic names is clearly from 
John's Gospel. Aristion and John the 
Presbyter were disciples of John the Apos- 
tle, and if Papias had never seen John the 
Apostle, he could have learned of these 
things through these Apostolic men whom 
he knew and who undoubtedly wrote the 
closing testimony in the Gospel. (see 
John 21:24). 

IGNATIUS. 

Ignatius also came ont of the first cen- 
tury, and was martyred not later than 120 
A. D. John's Gospel must have been but 
lately written and Ignatius does not quote 
literally, but paraphrases from the Gospel. 
We quote from his seven authentic epistles. 
"The living water which speaks in me." i 
"I desire the bread of God which is the 

1 John 4:10. 



70 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

flesh of Jesus Christ. "i Jesus is called 
"the door of the Father/' "God come in 
the flesh/' These expressions cannot have 
come from any other source than John's 
Gospel, and we are forced to the conclusion 
that the Gospel existed at the close of the 
first century. Hilgenfeld says — "The en- 
tire theology of the letter of Ignatius rests 
upon the Gospel of John. "2 

TESTIMONY FROM EARLY HERETICS. 

Heretical writers of this age also fur- 
nish testimony to the existence of the 
Fourth Gospel. Valentinus, a cotempo- 
rary of Justin, lived at Rome 140 A. D. and 
with his disciples built up a school of the- 
ology upon the Gospel of John. 

Marcion (138) uses for the basis of his 
theology a mutilated Gospel of Luke, 
and rejects the other gospels, among 
them that of John, Basilides (120-128) 
quotes from an older writer and uses 
words and teachings from John's Gospel. 

THE DIDACHE. 

The Didache, or Teaching of the 
Apostles, discovered by Bryennios in 1873, 
1 John 6:51. 2 Godet on John. vol. 1, p 166. 



GENUINENESS OF JOHN. 71 

is one of the oldest documents of the early 
Christian church. It was composed at or 
shortly after the beginning of the second 
century, as a manual of Christian conduct, 
and it contains twenty-three citations from 
"the Gospels." Of these none are direct 
from John; but the Eucharistic service is 
clearH^ based upon the teachings contained 
in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. 

SUMMARY OF THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 

Summing up the evidence thus far 
named, we find the accepted testimony, 
from Irenaeus onward, that the Fourth 
Gospel is the writing of John the Apostle. 
Written to refute heresies, and with its doc- 
trines antagonized all through this age, 
would its opponents have allowed the 
statements of Irenaeus to stand undenied? 
The only deniers of its genuineness were 
the Alogians of Thyatira, a heretical sect of 
the second century, who denied the Logos, 
and claimed that Cerinthus the Gnostic 
wrote the Fourth Gospel while John the 
Apostle lived. This sect is very obscure 
(its very existence is denied by some) and 
their testimony as recorded by Eusebius 



72 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

proves, at least, the earty date of this Gos- 
pel. But would the Christian Church of 
the latter part of this century be con- 
tent to accept the work of a well known 
heretic as a genuine gospel? 1 Would the 
versions, accepted by the orthordox church, 
contain a gospel by a recognized heretic? 

Previous to Irenreus, from Tatian down 
to Ignatius, we find quotations full and in 
part, their number decreasing as we ap- 
proach the first century. In these same 
writers we find at the same time a great 
mass of teaching which points to the Fourth 
Gospel as its source. 

Now these quotations, references and 
teachings compel the theory that the Fourth 
Gospel was originated before the end of the 
first century; and this confirms the positive 
and accepted historical statement of Ire- 
nreus 

INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 

We now turn to the internal evidence 
for the genuineness. 

WHO WAS "THIS DISCIPLE?" 

In John 21:24 we read "This is the dis- 
ciple which beareth witness of these things 

i Fisher's Manual, p 66. 



GENUINENESS OF JOHN. To 



and wrote these things, and we know that 
his witness is true." Thus from the book 
itself, evidence aims to identify the writer; 
and all that is left is to determine who is 
"this disciple." 

We learn from John 21:20 that this 
same disciple was the one "whom Jesus 
loved," "which also leaned back on His 
hreast at the supper and said 'Lord who is 
he that hetrayeth thee?'" In John 13:23 it 
is written — "There was at the table reclin- 
ing on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples 
whom Jesus loved." This man then is the 
disciple who wrote the book. 

WHO IS THE UNNAMED DISCIPLE? 

All through John's Gospel there is an 
unnamed disciple (see John 1:40, 20:2, 19:26, 
21:7). He is the one "whom Jesus loved," 
the other disciple "whom Jesus loved." He 
is one of the seven who went night-fishing 
on Galilee, after the resurrection. Who, of 
the fishermen, could the unnamed disciple 
"whom Jesus loved" have been? All are 
named except the sons of Zebedee and two 
others of His disciples. One of these four 
was the disciple "whom Jesus loved," and 



74 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



he wrote the book.i The two other of His 
disciples were most probably "disciples in 
the wider sense;" but the disciple whom 
Jesus loved was an apostle. We have thus 
confined the writer to the small group of 
four at the most. 

HE IS IN ANOTHER GROUP. 

But we can also find the disciple whom 
Jesus loved in another group in the other 
Gospels. In Matt. 17:1-13, Mark 9:2-13, 
Luke 9:28-36 it is said that Jesus took Peter, 
James and John and went up into a high 
mountain. There he was transfigured, 
and during the descent revealed His ap- 
proaching death. Again, when about to 
begin His agony in Gethsemane, He took 
with Him Peter, James and John (see Matt. 
26:37, Mark 14:33). These, most closely at- 
tached to Jesus, His companions in His 
highest glory and deepest agony, are most 
surely the disciples whom Jesus loved. In 
the prologue to the Gospel the writer says: 
"And we beheld His glory, glory as of the 
only begotten from the Father," which m akes 
it still all the more probable that the wri- 

1 See Meyer on John. vol. 2, p 392. 



GENUINENESS OF JOHN. ID 

ter was one of the three who were upon the 
mount. 

ALL ARE EXCLUDED EXCEPT JOHN. 

Thus we have identified the disciple 
whom Jesus loved in two groups. Peter is 
excluded in the first, and the sons of Ze- 
bedee are common to both. James could 
not have written the Gospel for he died, 
the first apostolic martyr; and we have 
proved the book to have been written at the 
close of the first century. John then 
is the disciple whom Jesus loved, who wrote 
the book. 

The testimony of the writer to the 
smallest details in these events, and the 
spirit of the writer which constantly comes 
from the explanations and narrations re- 
veal him as an eye witness, a Palestinian 
Jew, the closest companion of Jesus. John 
is the only possible disciple who can satisty 
all this internal investigation. Thus the 
external and internal testimoii}" make the 
evidence for the Genuineness of John's 
Gospel overwhelming. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



GENUINENESS OF THE 

SYNOPTICS. 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM. 

^TAHE Gospels according to Matthew, 
-A- Mark and Luke are called the Synop- 
tics. They possess much material in com- 
mon, some that is peculiar to two of them 
and a considerable amount of testimony 
peculiar to each alone. This opens the 
" Synoptic Problem" — Are they dependent, 
independent, or partby both, in their compo- 
sition? Which is the oldest? What is the 
order of their composition? These questions 
do not concern our argument. From what- 



GENUINENESS OF TUB SYNOPTICS. 77 

ever source their material was derived, 
we ask— Were these books written by 
the men to whom they are ascribed? 

JOHN PRESUMES OTHER GOSPELS. 

Having proved the genuineness of John's 
Gospel, we can assume that when John 
wrote, other Gospels by disciples of Jesus 
were then existing. In John 20:30, 31 it is 
stated why John chose to record certain 
signs that Jesus did, viz.: "That ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of 

(rod." 

We must remember that John has omit- 
ted many miracles of Jesus' life, e. g., the 
miracles surrounding His birth, the temp- 
tation, the healing of lepers and demons, 
the transfiguration, the ascension. We 
know from history that these miracles were 
believed in long before John wrote. Paul, 
in his Epistles, whose genuineness none 
disputes, assumes all these occurrences; 
and Paul must have written many years 
before John. Is it credible that John would 
have omitted them if they had not been 
fully and acceptably recorded? 

John also says in the thirtieth verse of 



78 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the same chapter — "Many other signs there- 
fore did Jesus in the presence of the dis- 
ciples which are not written in this book." 
"This" is written after "book," emphasiz- 
ing this book in contrast with overbooks. 
What are we to believe, but that disciples 
before John had written other books con- 
taining these "other signs," which John 
has not recorded. 

TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN AND PAPIAS. 

The historical testimony of the genu- 
ineness of the Synoptics is very complete, 
and as we might expect, runs back a little 
earlier than that of John. We begin with 
Justin Martyr and Papias, whose testi- 
monies supplement each other. The for- 
mer died about 165, the latter about 153 A. D. 

JUSTIN MARTYR. 

Justin has left us three writings, two 
"Apologies" and the "Dialogue with Try- 
pho." In his Dialogue he gives an account 
of his conversion from Greek Philosophy 
to Christianity. Justin was most highly 
educated, a noble and beautiful character, 
and at last laid down his life for the faith. 
Justin made use of our Gospels, quoting 



GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS. 79 



them as "Memorials" written by "Apostles" 
and their "companions. n He does not men- 
tion them by name, but quotes very large ty 
from Matthew and Luke, and once from 
Mark. He says that these writings were 
"also called Gospels" and were read in the 
service of the Christians. 

Justin was a great Apologist, but there 
was need of no defence of the genuineness 
of these Gospels from which he quotes. 
His line of proof is that the teachings of 
Christianity are in fulfilment of prophecy 
and in accord with the revelation of the 
Logos — the Son of God, and are morally 
pure, wholesome and in accord with all 
that is good. Justin is a most valuable 
witness. We must remember that he had 
been a Stoic and a Platonist, and had be- 
come most learned in these cults; that he 
had surrendered absolutely to the powers 
of Christianity and that he sealed his testi- 
mony with his death. 1 

PAPIAS. 

Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis and a 
cotemporary martyr of Polycarp. Euse- 
bius who preserves fragments from him 

1 See Ante-Xicene Fathers, Introduction to Justin. 



80 p:vri)KNCES of Christianity. 

speaks of him in one place as of "small 
capacity/' in another as "most learned." 
Whatever Eusebius may mean by this, the 
historical statements of Papias are worth}^ 
of all belief since they are the oral testi- 
mon}^ of "Aristion and the Presbyter John" 
and others of the elders. 1 The statement 
"small capacity" is no doubt a reference to 
the strong Millenarianism of Papias. Pa- 
pias says (quoted by Eusebius) — "And the 
Presbyter said this: 'Mark having become 
the interpreter for Peter, wrote down accu- 
rately whatever he remembered. It was 
not however in exact order that he related 
the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he 
neither heard the Lord nor accom- 
panied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he 
accompanied Peter, who accommodated his 
instructions to the necessities, but with no 
intention of giving a regular narrative of 
the Lord's sayings. Wherefore, Mark made 
no mistake in thus writing some things as 
he remembered them. For of one thing he 
took especial care, not to omit anything he 
had heard and not to put anything fictitious 
into the statements.' " Of Matthew, Pa- 
pias sa} T s: "Matthew put together the 

! See History of Christian Church, Schaff. vol. 2, p69i. 



GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS. Si 

oracles in the Hebrew language and each 

one interpreted them as best he could." 

The testimony of Justin and Papias 
proves that in the first part of the 
second century there were books called 
"memorials" and "oracles" written by 
Matthew and Mark, and that these docu- 
ments were received as accurate accounts 
of the life and teachings of Jesus. 



EARLIER EPISTOLARY EVIDENCE. 

The external evidence for the existence 
of the Gospel previous to the two writers 
mentioned above, consists chiefly of letters 
or fragments of them, written by church 
Fathers for advice and exhortation, in which 
no need arose for testimony concerning the 
composition of the Gospel. These letters 
are valuable to our subject because of a few- 
direct quotations, and their broad teaching 
of the Gospel-history and doctrine. They 
assume the outlines of Jesus' birth, cruci- 
fixion and resurrection. The} 7 echo the 
teachings of Jesus on the mount. The} 7 
could not have been composed 



82 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

without gospels, written or oral, like the 
accepted canonical books. 

EPISTLE OF POLYCARP. 

Polycarp, the pupil of John, in an 
epistle to the Philippians quotes from Mat- 
thew, Mark and Luke, as follows: "But 
remember what the Lord said, teaching: 
'Judge not that ye be not judged:' 'Forgive 
and ye shall be forgiven:' 'Be 3^e merciful 
that ye may obtain mercy:' 'With what 
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to 
you again:' 'Blessed are the poor and they 
that are persecuted for righteousness' sake 
for theirs is the kingdom of God.'" "As the 
Lord hath said: 'The spirit indeed is wil- 
ling but the flesh is weak.'"i 

Polycarp has many quotations from our 
New Testament, and he gives them Scrip- 
tural authorit}^. These letters, and there 
were many of them, were written to churches 
composed of the most intelligent Chris- 
tians, all of whom must have accepted the 
same inspired sources of the Gospel. No 
sane mind can doubt, in view of this evi- 
dence, that the New Testament existed and 

1 Lardner. Vol. 2, plOl. Matt. 5:3, 7.10. LUKE 6:20,36,37,38. 
MARK 14:38. 



GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS. S3 

wis fully received before the beginning of 
the second century. 

THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS. 

The Kpistle of Barnabas was written 
after the destruction of Jerusalem to those 
who had "seen so great signs and prodi- 
gies." It is one of the earliest of the 
Post-Apostolic epistles. He quotes from 
the Synoptics as follows: "He came that 
He might show that He came not to call 
the righteous but sinners to repentance:" 1 
"Give to everyone that asketh thee:" "Let 
us therefore beware lest it should happen 
to us as it is written 'There are many 
called but few are chosen/" 

EPISTLES OF CLEMENT OF ROXE. 

Clement of Rome, according to Ire- 
nseus, was the "pupil of an apostle." The 
accepted tradition is that he was third 
Bishop at Rome. His epistles to the Cor- 
inthians are proved to be genuine and were 
often accepted as apostolic documents. 
He uses as authorities the Old Testament, 
the Apocrypha and the New Testament. 
He is especially familiar with the Epistles 
of Paul, of whom he speaks with great 

\ Epistle of Barnabas. Ch. 5. 
1 ] MATT. 9:13. Parallel in MARK. "to repentance" 
' onlvin LUKE. 



84 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

veneration. He quotes from Matt. 26:24, 
from Luke 17:2, from Mark 9:42. The most 
probable date of this epistle is 97 A. D., 
although some conservative writers would 
place it as early as 68 A. D. 

THE DIDACHE. 

This oldest church manual, to which 
we have alluded, gives twenty-three cita- 
tions from "the Gospel;" of these, seventeen 
are from Matthew or Matthew and Luke. 
The writer claims no authorit}^ for himself ; 
but gives the teachings froiri the Lord 
through the twelve apostles. His citations 
are evidently from commonly accepted 
writings. No oral Gospel can be proved by 
them, for five are express quotations from 
our written Gospels. The date of the Di- 
dache most easily maintained is from 100 
to 120 A. D. 

TESTIMONY TO LUKE'S GOSPEL. 

That Luke's Gospel was in documen- 
tary form early in the second century is 
certain from the use which Marcion, the 
founder of the sect which bore his name, 
made of it at Rome 140 A. D. Marcion had 



GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOPTICS. 85 

been expelled from the Christian church 
.it Pontus, and going to Rome issued a 
gospel which can be nothing less than 
Luke's Gospel worked over to suit the pecu- 
liar views of this heretic. According to 
Marcion, the true canon of Scripture con- 
sisted of Luke's Gospel, and ten (10) Epistles 
of Paul. When Marcion wrote, the Gospel 
according to Luke must have been written, 
and, according to Theodoret, a historian of 
the fourth century, Marcion was not the 
originator of this heresy, one Cerdo who 
"proved by the Gospels the just God of the 
old covenant and the good God of the new 
are different beings."! Hence the prede- 
cessor of Marcion is found to be dependent 
upon Luke. 

NO EARLY DEFENCE NEEDED. 

We have shown that our Synoptics were 
in possession of the generation immediate- 
ly following the apostles themselves. Why 
there is no definite statement that these 
were genuine documents by Matthew, 
Mark and Luke is very evident. There is 
no dispute upon the genuineness; hence 
the statement of it would not frequently be 

1 Godet on LUKE, p 4. 



86 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

made. Why should Polycarp or Clement 
of Rome defend a point not yet attacked? 
However as soon as a statement of the gen- 
uineness was needed , it was given with 
the utmost confidence and certainty of ac- 
ceptance. 

IREN^US TESTIFIES. 

Irenaeus of Gaul,shortly after he became 
bishop, wrote a book against the numerous 
heresies that had arisen in the church. 
The majority of these were wild, irrational 
speculations of gnostic Christians. In his 
third book Irenseus adduces "proofs from 
the Scriptures," and in so doing, informs 
his readers how these Scriptures came into 
being. 1 He says: "We have learned from 
none others the plan of our salvation than 
from those through whom the Gospel has 
come down to us, which they did at one 
time proclaim in public, and, at a later 
period by the will of God, handed down to 
us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and 
pillar of our faith." 

"Matthew also issued a written gospel 
among the Hebrews in their own dialect, 
while Peter and Paul were preaching at 
1 Irenseus Adv. Hser. book 3, ch. I. 



GENUINENESS OF THE SYNOP1 ' 87 

Rome and laying the foundations of the 
church. After their departure, Mark, the 
disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also 
hand down to us in writing what had been 
preached hy Peter. Luke also, the com- 
panion of Paul, recorded in a book the 
gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John 
the disciple of the Lord, who also had lean- 
ed upon His breast, did himself publish a 
Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in 
Asia." 

Irenaeus names these facts as undispu- 
ted, received by all, and uses them to crush 
his opponents who do not deny the genu- 
ineness of these Scriptures; but "turn 
around and accuse these same Scriptures 
as if they were not correct nor of authority 
-and that they are ambiguous, and that 
the truth cannot be extracted from them by 
those who are ignorant of tradition." 

THE GOSPELS ARE THE MEMORIALS. 

The "Gospels" of Irenseus are the "Me- 
morials' 1 of Justin — a vast number of quota- 
tions in both proves this. The time be- 
tween these two writers was too short to 
permit the rise of any other documents 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



without the knowledge of Irenaeus. The 
quotations in the writers before Justin 
prove that they also had the same docu- 
ments. 

SUBSEQUENT EVIDENCE. 

After Iren^eus, the great church-writers 
affirmed the same statements. Tertullian, 
Clement of Alexandria, Origen andEusebius 
carr}^ us up into the fourth centu^; and 
finally at the Council of Carthage 397 
A. D. the canon of the New Testament, 
was finally settled, not because the Church 
Council had determined upon these books, 
but because all Christendom was satisfied 
that these Gospels were genuine. 

That they were identical with what we 
now have has been made more apparent 
by the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, a 
manuscript of the middle of the fourth cen- 
tury. Thus the line of evidence is complete 
from the days of the apostles until now. 



A 7:7/ ' TES TAMENT CREDI- 
BILITY AND AUTHENTICITY. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BY Credibility, we mean the trustwor- 
thiness of the narrator; by Authenti- 
city, the truth of the narration itself. These 
two topics are so interdependent that we 
treat them as one 

THE UNIVERSAL ATTESTATION 

There is no way of explaining the rise 
and growth of the Christian religion and 
church, except upon the ground that a 
great multitude of the best and most 
thoughtful men of the first and second cen- 
turies firmly believed that the apostles 
were credible witnesses and their testimony 
worthy of all belief. In Asia, Africa and 
Europe, from among Jews and Gentiles, 



tiQ EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

from all walks and conditions of life they 
testify — "We believe these men and their 
writings." The statements mad< by the 
apostles covered events which were enact- 
ed before the eyes of multitudes; these 
were living witnesses, and some of them 
hostile to the new faith, in whose time 
these books are proved to have been writ- 
ten. "These things were not done in a cor- 
ner." The apostles staked all their reputa- 
tion upon the certainty of the fact of these 
things; and thousands of cotemporaries 
witnessed by word and life that these 
things were so. The early church-fathers 
staked their reputation, their present and 
future happiness, their lives upon the cred- 
ibility of the apostles. If the latter 
had taught or written falsely, detection 
would have been easy and immediate. In 
that part of the world where the events 
occurred, and at that time, they preached 
and wrote with the calmness of certainty. 

CHARACTER OF THE WRITERS. 

Compared with the wise philosophers 
and rhetoricians of the heathen world, these 
men were babes. Compared with the prod- 
ucts of these wise men of the world, the 



CREDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY. 91 

writings of these babes are as the sun to 
the rush-light. When we consider the 
Gospels in their beauty, depth and power, 
and then remember their human authors, 
we stand amazed — the cause is inadequate 
to the effect. Matthew was a publican of 
Galilee, evidently in character a business 
man, a man of the world; not irreligious, 
but loving and making money until his 
Master called him, and for three years 
taught and then inspired him. Mark was 
a 3^ounger man, possibl3 T a Jerusalemite, 
companion to Paul and Barnabas and af- 
terwards to Peter. Mark had his weak- 
nesses in the ear^ part of his career, but 
Paul afterwards considered him "useful to 
me for ministering." 1 Mark wrote the 
Gospel preached by Peter. The integrity 
of Mark, i.e., his correct rendering of Peter's 
Gospel is not questioned, being universally 
accepted. And who was Peter?" A fisher- 
man of Galilee, an uneducated man in 
the wisdom of the world, y^X challenging 
his age with a message that drives all 
worldly wisdom to the wall. Luke had 
some culture. He was a Greek, probably, 
and a physician — howbeit, physicians were 

1 2nd TIM. 4:11, ACTS 1.1:3s. 



92 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

often slaves. Luke wrote as Paul preached ; 
still he had knowledge of Jesus from other 
apostles and his Gospel is his own testi- 
mony from eyewitnesses. 1 John was also 
a fisherman of Galilee. John did not make 
Christianity. Christianity made John. 
Nothing can he, nothing ever was, alleged 
against these men that in the least degree 
weakens them as competent witnesses, and 
recorders of the testimony of others. Two 
of them were eyewitnesses of the facts of 
Jesus' life, death and resurrection; and two 
after the year 48 A. 1). were companions of 
the foremost apostles. Thus they, the four, 
represent the testimony of all the apostles. 

The3 T had the means of having the 
facts. Nearly all histories are written by 
authors who obtain their facts from others. 
There is no cotemporary of Alexander 
who writes the history of the brilliant Ma- 
cedonian; but who will doubt that we have 
a substantially accurate account of his 
career:* Jesus' disciples, who were thought- 
ful, earnest and uncultured men, Jews 
with strong and ever prejudiced feelings 
against any new faith which might conflict 
with that in which they had been reared, 

^ Luke 1:1-4. 



( REDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY. 



testify to tin- facte which happened in 
their presence. Some of these facta w< 
contrary to their opinions and beliefs. I >m 
th<- disciples were the servants of fa< 
They could not but bear witness to what 
they -aw and heard. Their testimony 
we have viewed it is not the testimony oi 
one man, but of many, and all agree in the 
-• -ntial points. We believe, by clear, the- 
ological proof, that the Holy Spirit inspired 
these men to record without error. Evi- 
dences, however, does not ask for this ulti- 
mate faith, although it paves the way for 
its reception. The reliability of the wit- 
nesses and the substantial accuracy and 
agreement of the testimony are all that 
we need in our argument. 

THEIR HUMILITY. 

In all the testimony of the apostles we 

find a very marked humility. They claim 
to have originated nothing of their faith; 
but were only and always witnesses o\ 
their Lord. They never assert their supe- 
riority, but offer themselves as servants to 
God and men. They have but few opin- 
ions of their own, and even confess thai 



94 KDVIENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

some which they formerly had were erro- 
neous. The} 7 let facts speak. Herod the 
Great, Herod Antipas, Pilate, Caiaphas, all 
were guilty of great wrong towards their 
Master and His cause; yet the apostles do 
not use any denunciatory epithets when 
they write of them, but calmly state what 
these rulers did. John alone says that 
Judas "was a thief/'! and says this only to 
explain the reason why Judas spoke certain 
words at Bethan}^. Peter says, dismissing 
the case of Judas, "that he might go to his 
own place. "2 

THEIR CANDOR. 

They candidly relate things discred- 
itable to themselves. They childishly con- 
tend among themselves which should be 
the greatest. 3 Even at the last supper 
this controversy again arose. 4 The} 7 testif}^ 
to their own unbelief or little faith, s their 
hardness of heart, 6 their ignorance, 7 their 
cowardice. 8 Peter, through Mark, relates 
his shameful rebuke and fall. 9 

Such men are generally accepted as 
honest witnesses. If they had related 
ordinary events betraying such a character 

i JOHN 12:6. 2 ACTS 1:25. 3 MARK 9:34. 4 LUKE 22:24 
5 MATT. 17:20. 6 MARK 6:52. 7 MATT. 15:1ft. 
8 MARK 14:50. 9 MARK 8:33, 14:66-72. 



CREDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY. 95 



as we have shown them to possess, no one 
would- ever doubt their testimony. But we 
have shown that the extraordinary events, 
to which they bear witness, are credible in 
the light of what the religion of Jesus is, 
does and claims to be able to do. Other 
men in other times have testified to mira- 
cles, but those to which the disciples of 
Jesus testify stand out in their moral cause 
and effect as the morality of Jesus towers 
above all others. There is adequate cause 
for both these miracles and this morality. 
If the events to which the disciples testify 
did not happen, what did happen that 
Christianify should arise? 

DECEIVERS, DECEIVED OR HOXEST MEN 
WITH FACTS. 

We have shown that the apostles can- 
not be charged with deception. The stand- 
ard of morality which the}" teach would 
alone suffice to make such a charge absurd. 

Xor can they have been deceived. 
There were too many of them to be victims 
of a plot such as this theory would assume. 
So many men of hard sense could not have 
been the subjects of a hallucination such 



96 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

as the Gospel miracles would demand. 
Miracles began at a certain time and then 
stopped. They were not always wrought, 
Jesus guards his followers against overes- 
timation of miracles. The report of them is 
sometimes suppressed. Middle-age mira- 
cles are in line with prevailing belief. Apos- 
tolic miracles are against the prevailing 
faith. The mythical theory of the last 
century has gone to pieces against these 
considerations. 1 

These apostles sealed their testimori3 r 
with their death. This was a forecast of 
their Master. They relate it. They believe 
it. Still onward they go, joyful to suffer in 
His cause who died for them. On the 
other hand they avoid death whenever 
possible. 2 Such men are not wild enthu- 
siasts, but calm, convinced, credible wit- 
nesses to authentic events. 

HARMONY. 

The four Gospels are four stories of one 
biography. They are by four writers each 
of whom had a different reason for writing. 
This, then, must follow — Agreement in all 
essential points, with difference in details. 

1 See Fisher's Manual, p 74. 2 ACTS 12:17. 



CREDIBILITY AND AUTHENTICITY. 97 

Four witnesses with this kind of testimony 
would make the strongest kind of a law- 
case. It disproves collusion between the 
witnesses. It proves the certainty of the 
essential points. Ne'arly all the so-called 
discrepancies in the four Gospels can be 
resolved into a case in which both or all the 
details are possible. Such is the nature of 
the testimony of the apostles. To sum up — 
the apostles have almost universal attes- 
tation. The} 7 were true, unsophisticat- 
ed men. They had the means of having 
the facts. They were humble, candid wit- 
nesses. The} 7 evidence that they were 
neither deceivers nor deceived. They sur- 
rendered all and died for their testimony. 
Their witnessing agrees. Therefore they 
are credible and their narrations are 
authentic. 



CHARACTER OF JESUS. 



CHAPTER X. 

FROM the four Gospels the world has 
derived the character of Jesus. In 
truth it may well be said — "His character 
stands as the central orb of the system, and 
without it there would be no effectual light 
and no heat."' The truth of deductive logic 
does not rest upon the character of Aris- 
totle, nor the philosophy of the pure reason 
upon the character of Kant; but Christian- 
ity rests upon the character of Jesus. He 
claims our love and offers Himself as its 
object. He is a living embodiment of all 
that He taught. 

A MANY-SIDED CHARACTER. 

The character of Jesus is like a great 

1 Mark Hopkins, Lowell Lectures. p212. 



CHARACTER OF JEST - 99 

jewel; from many faces the glory sparkles. 
His character, if viewed from the negative 
side, presents no opportunit}^ for moral crit- 
icism. He did nothing for which He can 
be reproached, and at the same time He 
neglected nothing which He ought, mor- 
ally, to have done. He was free from even 
the excusable customs of His day, which 
some might regard as compromising. In 
all His relationship with men, women, so- 
ciety, the state, the church, He is absolute- 
1}" free from aii}^ word or deed which might 
have injured a good name. He challenges 
His enemies to convict Him of sin,i and 
this in the midst of His most hostile sur- 
roundings. If the opponents of Christian- 
ity could have successfully assailed the 
character of Jesus, the apostolic age would 
have witnessed the destruction of the ris- 
ing faith. 

HUXLEY AXD THE GADAREXE SWIXE. 

Professor Thomas Huxle}^ has found a 

flaw in the character of Jesus as presented 

by the Gospel writers. 2 "Everything that 

I know of law convinces me that the wan 

ton destruction of other peoples' propert}^ is 

1 JOHN h-AC. 2 See MARK 5, and Huxley's Science 
and Christian Tradition, p 370. 



L.ofC 



100 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

a misdemeanor of evil example." Huxley, 
of course, does not believe that evil spirits 
are able to pass from men into swine. 
"The choice then lies between discrediting 
those who compiled the Gospel biographies 
and disbelieving the Master, whom they, 
simple souls, thought to honor by preserv- 
ing such tradition of the exercise of His 
authority over Satan's invisible world. " 
"This is the dilemma." 

We are concerned with the moral issue 
alone. The New Testament writers agree 
that demons are moral agents, possessing 
a measure of freedom. The demons request 
Jesus that they shall be permitted to enter 
into the swine (according to all these wri- 
ters). Jesus has exercised His "all author- 
ity" in commanding them to depart from 
the man. Going out from the man they 
are again given their freedom, and are re- 
sponsible for all the consequences. The 
permission on the part of Jesus must fall 
into the category of all permissive decrees. 
The moral freedom of the agent who com- 
mits the deed, under permission, deter- 
mines who is to blame. 

POSITIVE WITNESS. 

Viewed from the positive side, the 



CHARACTER OF JESUS. 101 

character of Jesus is still more wonderful. 
Even those who do not believe in His 
divinity admit that His character is one of 
the greatest moral elevation. Jesus was a 
man of ideal ethical type, suitable to any 
age. He was a member of the society of 
His day; He was no recluse; and yet was 
as far removed from other men as our 
moral imagination can reach. In any age 
this would have been true — is true to-day. 
Jesus always has stood, still stands, alone. 
He was deeply pious and reverent toward 
God, His Father; and at the same time 
filled with an abounding love and loyalty 
toward sinful men. He was true to His 
own mission^ and yet so unselfish that the 
interest of all men was served by Him, to 
the utter sacrifice of Himself. His purity 
was combined with the utmost tenderness 
and compassion. Even in His stern sever- 
ity, which at times was called forth by the 
hypocrisy of His enemies, He was great 
and righteous. It was anger without pas- 
sion, and ever read}^ to turn into tender 
forgiveness. He could be sinned against 
while at the same time a sin against the 
Holy Spirit could not be forgiven. i 
l Make 3:29. 



102 EVIDENCES OF - CHRISTIANITY. 



NO SELF REPROACH. 

Jesus never prayed that His sins might 
be forgiven. He never repented. Regret 
for past deeds never came from His lips. 
He was conscious that He was doing God's 
will. He kept His Father's command- 
ments. 1 Even in His last days when the 
darkness of the dreadful scenes of His 
agony began to close around Him, and on 
into the unutterable torture of soul and 
body, with His disciples fled and all the 
world against Him, there is no self-re- 
proach. No word nor deed betrayed peni- 
tence on His part. There is but one con- 
clusion. The disciples accepted Jesus as 
morale perfect. They do not apply to Jesus 
nor to His character in the Gospels, such 
terms of commendation as we have used. 
They simply record facts, facts with no 
comments. The} 7 publish this character 
as witnesses to His words and deeds. 

THIS CHARACTER IS A MIRACLE. 

This fact then confronts us. Jesus left 
the impression upon His followers that He 
was sinless. Then either of two explana- 
tions must be true; Jesus was and did as 
1 John 15:10. 



CHARACTER OF JKSUS. 103 



they, the disciples, record, or the} 7 , by con- 
spiracy or innocently, invented this sinless 
character, and that by actual deed and life. 
If the former is true, Jesus is a miracle. If 
the latter is true, these Galileans, whether 
by fraud or in innocence, have performed 
a miracle. If we must assume a miracle, 
the former is by far the simpler and more 
acceptable to the rational mind. It can be 
shown that the latter is the effect; the 
former is the cause. The testimony of the 
witnesses, who could invent such a life as 
that of Jesus, that the}" saw and heard Him 
do and say these things, is a moral impos- 
sibility; for it would make them, while 
holding and recording perfect moral ideals 
andinpracticalform, the very basest of men, 
the grossest deceivers. The hypothesis of 
invention is self-destructive. The mirac- 
ulous character of Jesus must have been 
a reality, i 

THE SON OF GOD. 

This man of the purest and noblest 
character declared that He was the super- 
natural Messiah, the Son of God. 2 For 
this declaration He was crucified. He had 

1 See Row's Manual of Christian Evidence, p 81. 

2 MATT. 26:64. 



104 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

attested it b} r miracles. He further proved it, 
as we shall see by His resurrection. Some 
Christian Kvidences seem to shrink from 
this final conclusion. Why should we? 
Th$ evidence is in our hands. He raised 
the dead; He arose from the dead: His 
character is perfect; He must be believed 
in all things, or perfect moral purity and 
divine demonstration are compatible with 
the grossest deception. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE 

RESURRECTION OE 
JESUS. 

CHAPTER XL 

HAVING established the genuineness 
of the Gospels, and the credibility of 
their writers, we now proceed to the authen- 
ticity of the account of the resurrection of 
Jesus. This is the central miracle of the 
Xew Testament; and being also the key to 
all that followed in the rise of Christianity, 
it ought to be subjected to the keenest 
light and the strongest tests possible. We 
offer it in evidence as the crowning point 
of the argument, and are willing to stand 
or fall with it. "And if Christ hath not 



106 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY* 

been raised , then is our preaching vain? 
your faith also is vain."* 

hume's test of a miracle. 

The modern attack upon miracles is 
nothing new, it is a revival of Hume's old 
assault, not with philosophic but with sci- 
entific weapons. The following is Hume's 
verdict: "There is not to be found, in all 
history, any miracle attested by a sufficient 
number of men, of such unquestioned good- 
ness, education and learning as to secure us 
against all delusion in themselves; of such 
undoubted integrity as to place them be- 
yond all suspicion of any design to deceive 
others; of such credit and reputation in the 
eyes of mankind as to have a great deal to 
lose, in case of their being detected in any 
falsehood; and at the same time attesting 
facts, performed in such a public manner, 
and in so celebrated a part of the world, as 
to render the detection unavoidable. All 
such circumstances are requisite to give us 
a full assurance in the testimony of men." 
This test was also adopted by Professor 
Huxley in his celebrated controversy with 
Mr. Gladstone.2 

1 1ST COR. 15:14. 

% Huxley's Science and Christian Tradition, p 2)7. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 10* 

It is our purpose, not only to accept 
this test, but also to present the positive 
evidence for the miracle of the resurrection 
of Jesus along these very lines., This pro- 
perly belongs to credibility of the writers, 
but we have adopted it as common ground 
with an opponent in the discussion of the 
resurrection. 

IMPORTANCE. 

Both the enemies and friends of Jesus 
regarded the resurrection as the most im- 
portant fact of His history. The former 
saw in it the danger of a miglit}^ revolution 
in religion, hence they attacked it. The 
latter discovered it, and found it the guar- 
antee of their immortality and the ver} r 
pillar and ground of their faith; hence the 
abundance of testimony that clusters 
around it. The Elders of the Jews circu- 
lated the report, through the soldiers who 
had guarded the tomb, that "His disciples 
came by night and stole Him away while 
we slept." i Only men who had been asleep 
during the theft could have offered such 
testimon}". Celsus, the great opponent of 
Christianity in the second century, sug 

l Matt. 28:13. 



108 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

gested the vision-hypothesis, a theory ex- 
plaining the resurrection on the ground of 
self-deception. This has been revised in 
thenineteenthcenturyunder various forms. 
Every foe of supernatural Christianity in 
all the ages has recognized that to over- 
throw the resurrection of Jesus is to destroy 
all faith in His miracles. 

On the other hand, the apostles and 
their followers staked all their claim to 
veracity upon the resurrection. The} 7 were 
willing to be found false witnesses if Christ 
had not arisen. The} 7 preached "Jesus and 
the resurrection." Their whole doctrine of 
redemption was linked with the resurrec- 
tion. All depended upon it; hence we 
should expect it to be guarded as a great, 
sacred truth, and offered for the closest and 
most critical inspection. The resurrection 
was held up before a doubting nation and 
an indifferent world; and the result was 
the disintegration of the one and the con- 
quest of the other. 

JESUS' DEATH. 

That Jesus actually died is established 
by heathen testimony. Tacitus would not 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 109 

have accepted the historical fact if it had 
not been a matter of record or of universal 
belief. The centurion at the cross saw 
that He "gave up the ghost." i It was the 
business of the soldier to see that the crim- 
inal died. "Pilate marveled that He was al- 
ready dead, "hut the centurion assured him. 
Joseph of Arimathaea knew that Jesus 
was dead, as well as Xicodemus a member 
of the council. To make doubly sure, one 
of the soldiers thrust his spear into* Jesus' 
side, and blood and water came out, testi- 
fying to a hemorrhage from the heart- 
cavity. 

THE BURIAL AND WATCH. 

Two men, both of the highest" standing 
and integrity among the Jews, laid the 
body of Jesus in the tomb. The disciples 
were scattered. John had taken the mother 
of [esus to his house. Only the women 
beheld where the body was laid. 

Xo Jew would touch a dead body on 
the great sacred day which followed. None 
ever suspected that it was taken away 
at that time. The Riders bribed the guard 
to say that the disciples stole away the 

1 See Mark 15:39. 



110 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

body while they slept (i.e., slept on guard), 
and offered to "persuade the governor/' if 
it should come to his ears. If the} 7, could 
have offered the excuse that the disciples 
did the deed before the guard went to the 
tomb, it would have relieved the soldiers 
of all danger and would have made the 
bribe unnecessary. 

On the next da3^ J after the crucifixion, 
this guard was placed at the tomb, at the 
request of certain members of the priests 
and Pharisees. The tomb was "made sure, 
sealing the stone, the guard being with 
them. M 2 These "attesting facts" settle the 
certainty of the death, burial and safe-keep- 
ing of the body of Jesus. The witnesses 
who are cited are enough to prove any 
other event. Their goodness, education, 
integrity and freedom from design are un- 
questioned. Joseph of Arimathaea and 
Xicodemus lived to hear the resurrection 
become the most discussed question in Je- 
rusalem. If the Jews had the body they 
would have produced it, and overthrown 
the growing faith. The disciples were in- 
capable of stealing the body under the cir- 
cumstances; and their testimony that they 

1 The next day began at sunset. 
I MATT. 27:66. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION. Ill 

saw Him alive and the peculiar manner in 
which they saw Hi in, make the story of 
the body-snatching an absurdity. If the} 7 
had been deceivers, and had stolen the 
body, which afterwards they claimed came 
to life, would such men have left them- 
selves out of the transaction? It would 
have been their glory to claim that God 
had so worked a miracle through them. 

THE FOUR ACCOUNTS. 

The statements of the four evangelists 
are a wonderful illustration of unity of evi- 
dence through diversity of detail. "If there 
had been an exact agreement about every- 
thing, in time place and expression, few 
would have believed them; the agreement 
would then have been ascribed, to human 
contrivance, and because they had concert- 
ed matters together beforehand." So says 
Chrysostom. If the accounts of the resur- 
rection were an invention, how could such 
different details ever have been invented? 

But viewing all, one can make an ac- 
count, which, while not a perfect harmony 
of the recorded events, at least gives a sat- 
isfactory succession, including all the 
statements. 



112 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



THE EMPTY TOMB. 

The Hebrew day began and ended with 
sunset. Jesus was in the tomb from Friday 
before sunset, until Sunday morning some- 
time before da3 7 light. "A day and a night" 
in expression is the same as a day, and a 
part of a day is often called a day.i 

Very early on the third da} 7 , the first 
day of the week, the women came first to 
the tomb, having the spices with which to 
anoint the body of their Lord. 2 Mar} 7 Mag- 
dalene may have run ahead, and seeing the 
tomb open, hastened to tell the disciples. 
The other women coming up find the open 
tomb with no body in it; as the} 7 stand 
amazed, the two angels announce the resur- 
rection of Jesus. The women then go 
away. Next Peter and John come running 
to the tomb, followed by the weeping 
. Mary who thinks that her Lord has been 
stolen. Peter and John enter the tomb and 
see evidence in the condition of the grave- 
clothes and the napkin that the bod}- has 
not been stolen. They depart, wondering. 
Who can doubt that John's testimony is 
that of an e} r e-witiiess, when he says that 

1 Robinson's Harmony, pill. 

2 See MATT. 28, MARK 16:2, JLuke 24, John 20. Robin- 

son's Harmony, p 199. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 113 



he outran Peter, and that he was obliged 
to stoop down, and that Peter went in first? 

FIRST-DAY APPEARANCES. 

After they have gone, Mar} x remains 
weeping, and Jesus appears unto her. This 
is a possible arrangement if we conclude to 
accept Mark 1(3:9. 

The other appearances on the first da} T 
fall into place as follows: 
2 — To the women returning from the tomb, 

— MATTHEW. 

3 — -To Peter later in the da}", reported also 
b} T Paul. — luke. 

4 — To the two disciples on the road to Em- 

lliaus. — LUKE, MARK. 

7) —To the ten in the evening, also by Paul. 

— MARK, LUKE, JOHN. 
APPEARANCES AFTER THE FIRST DAY. 

6 — To the eleven, eight days after the first. 

— JOHN. 

7 — To the seven on the lake. — JOHN, 

8 — -To the eleven and five hundred breth- 
ren, also by Paul.— matthkw. 

9 — To James, reported b} r Paul alone. 

10 —To the eleven immediately before the 
ascension, by Paul. — luke in acts. 



114 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 

We have included the testimony of 
Paul, that the table of appearances may be 
complete. 

CHARACTER OF THE APPEARANCES. 

We thus learn that these appearances 
began and ended abruptly. At times and 
places unexpected, except in ' the mount, 
Jesus appeared unto more than the apos- 
tles, to over five hundred, according to 
Paul, whose testimony will be considered 
hereafter. These apostles testify that they 
did not believe. Jesus overcame their 
unbelief. They saw and touched Him. To 
prove that He was not a spirit, He ate fish 
before them. These interviews were spread 
over forty days; then leaving His last com- 
mission with them, viz.: that they should 
witness these things unto all the nations, 
He ascended into a cloud. Myths and 
legends arise under far different conditions 
than these. If these interviews were im- 
aginary they would have increased and not 
come to an abrupt ending. 

Here is a body of men, acknowledged 
to be good men; if not highly educated, at 
least possessed of the soundest judgment; 
of unimpeached integrity (one, Peter, tells 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE RESURRECTION. 115 

of his own denial of his Lord); with all the 
facts of the case opposed to any design on 
their part; with everything to lose, their 
own souls according to their belief, if untrue 
in their statements. There is also the at- 
testing fact that three thousand persons 
in Jerusalem in one da}^ confessed to 
their faith that these things were so. We 
must believe that the resurrection of Jesus 
is authentic history. The certain death, 
the guarded tomb, the empt3 r sepulchre, 
the unexpected appearances testified to by 
the honest, earnest disciples, the character 
of the witnesses, the rise of the Christian 
faith and the consistent lives and sacrifice 
of these witnesses make the resurrection 
the most truly authenticated event of an- 
cient history. i 

On what ground will any candid stu- 
dent of these evidences throw out the tes- 
timony of the apostles? On a priori ground? 
Then they but walk in the footprints of 
Hume and thresh over his old straw. On 
scientific grounds? What has science dis- 
covered that denies this testimony? They 
who would retain their Christianity and 
still deny, or refuse to admit, this miracle 
must stand and be judged at the bar of 
apostolic testimony. 

1 See SchafTs Church History, vol. 1, p 181. 



chai'tkk xrr. 



I\UL. 



DHE GENUINENESS OF ACTS. 

f I "> 1 1 E Acts of the Apostles is the narra- 
-L- tion of the rise of the Christian 
Church at Jerusalem, and its developmenl 
and spread, until Taal one of the greal apos- 
tles is establishing his aggressive faith 
at Rome. The hook is amply proved to 
have been written by Luke the companion 

of Paul. The introduction of the Gospel 

according to Luke and the preface of the 
Acts, the style and structure of both hooks 
constitute powerful internal evidence. Nor 

is its external proof less. Clement of Rome, 

[gnatius, 1 'olycarp, Hermas, Justin Martyr 



I'AIL 117 

all reproduce its language. It stands in 

the Syriac and old Latin versions as it 
stands in the NewTestament to-day. Prof. 
Harnack, a most advanced and in some re- 
spects rationalistic historian, locates both 
Luke and Acts in the first century. Its ac- 
curacy in all details is wonderful. None 
l)n t a most competent eyewitness could 
have written it. 

Xo one doubts that Paul wrote the 
Romans, First and Second Corinthians and 
Galatians. There are nearly forty coinci- 
dences in the four epistles and the Acts. 
with no possible reference from one to the 
other. That a companion of Paul wrote it, 
is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
The book is a unity, for the oldest quota- 
tions are from the passages not containing 
the "no," as well as from those which in- 
clude this much discussed word. 1 

The Acts accounts for the rapidspread 
of Christianity. That Christianity spread 
with great rapidity we can easily infer from 
Roman historians. There was a great mul- 
titude of Christians in Rome in the year 64 
A. I), according to Tacitus. 2 In the prov- 
ince of Pontus and Bithynia, Pliny the 

i See MPClymont'a New Testament and its Writers, p 12. 

2 Tac, Aim. xv. u. 



118 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Younger reports that "the number of the 
Christians was so large that the heathen 
altars had been well nigh deserted, and 
there had been no market for the sale of 
animals for sacrifice. " Pliny reports also 
that "the temples which were almost for- 
saken began to be more frequented, "i show- 
ing that his administration was overcom- 
ing "the superstition"— A. D. 107. 

PAUL SAW JESUS. 

The Acts of the Apostles gives the his- 
torical ground for this rapid spread, and is 
in every way an authentic history. It con- 
tains the record of the conversion of Saul 
of Tarsus, which accounts are corroborated 
by Paul in First Corinthians and Galatians. 
Three times it is narrated in the Acts, viz. 
Acts 9, 22, 26. In Galatians 1:13-17 and 1st 
Cor. 15:8 and 9:1, Paul affirms the same 
event. 

When the faith of the crucified Naza- 
rene began to rise like a mighty flood in Je- 
rusalem, Saul of Tarsus, a young Pharisee, 
a pupil of Gamaliel, and a most zealous Jew, 
was one of those who were determined to 
stamp out this destructive heresy. He was 

1 See Lardner on Pliny, vol. 7, p 24. 



PAUL. 119 

evidently a member of a court which con- 
demned Christians, probably a member of 
the Sanhedrim. i While going to Damas- 
cus, on the road, at midday, a great light 
appeared unto him, a person revealed him- 
self and gave positive evidence that the 
revealing one was Jesus of Nazareth. Paul 
says in Galatians: "It was the good pleas- 
ure of God, who separated me even from 
my mother's womb, and called me through 
His grace, to reveal His Son in me." The 
fiercest persecutor at once became Paul the 
mightiest advocate. 

HE WAS TOTALLY UNPREPARED. 

Paul had opposed Christianity with a 
good conscience. 2 He had seen Stephen 
die, consenting and aiding in his death. 
"Hard for thee to kick against the goad," 
means: "It is for thee a difficult under- 
taking that thou shouldest contend against 
My will." 3 This occurrence took place 
away from Jerusalem, and perhaps as 
much as four years after Jesus appeared 
unto the apostles. To some minds this 
change in Paul is the most remarkable 
thing in Bible-history. He went "breath- 

1 ACTS 26:10. 2 ACTS 23:1, 26:9. 3 Meyer on ACTS 16:14. 



120 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ing threatening and slaughter." He came 
back "preaching Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion." Dr. Baur who had maintained the 
vision-li3 r pothesis admits that it cannot ex- 
plain how God "revealed His Son in Paul;'' 
and adds that "this miracle appears all the 
greater when we remember that in this re- 
vulsion of his consciousness he broke 
through the barriers of Judaism and rose 
out of its particularism into the universal- 
ism of Christianity." 1 

How can. this "revulsion of conscious- 
ness" be explained in such a man as Paul? 
There is only one possible adequate ex- 
planation. He saw Jesus. 

PAUL'S PERSONAL TESTIMONY. 

In First Corinthians, Paul gives the 
appearances of Jesus to the apostles and 
brethren. Five of these appearances had 
been witnessed to him by the apostles. 
They include one to "five hundred brethren 
at once, of whom the greater part remain 
until now, but some are fallen asleep." 

This is most remarkable testimony. 
Paul's character is one of the purest of all 
human history. His integrity may have 

1 For a full discussion of this, see ScharFs Church 
History, vol. 1, p315. 



PAIL. 121 

been assailed at Corinth, but we never 
should have known it if he had not unself- 
ishly alluded to it. Would he have risked 
his standing in the church, and indeed his 
whole cause, on the statement that a great- 
er part of the live hundred witnesses were 
still living, if it had not been true? 

"Last of all, as unto one born out of due 
time, He appeared to me also."* Paul is 
an apostle, but an independent witness. 
The Epistle to the Romans alone proves its 
writer one of the brainiest of men, deep and 
safe in his thought matters, strong and 
sound in logic, the last man in all ancient 
history to be deluded. Paul had communi- 
cations with Jesus afterwards, but they all 
are distinguished from this one, which was 
an appearance to confirm the resurrection 
Paul gave his life in obedience to the com- 
mand of the resurrected Jesus, sealing his 
testimony with his martyrdom. He was 
the sanest and humblest of men. It is no 
sacrilege to say that those who try to ex- 
plain away the miracles of early Christian- 
ity are broken when they stumble upon 
Paxil, and that those upon whom he falls, 
are ground into powder. 
1 1 ST Cor. 15:8. 



122 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

THE CONCURRENT TEST. 

The evidence from the apostles and 
Paul concerning the miracle of the resur- 
rection can be summed up along every line 
of our test. The number, the goodness, 
the education, the learning and integrity 
are all provided for in these witnesses and 
in the way in which they, through } r ears of 
struggle and sacrifice, presented the evi- 
dence. In the face of a sinful, hostile world 
they submitted their evidence to the very 
sunlight of investigation, fearing no possi- 
bility of being detected in falsehood. "In 
so celebrated a part of the world as to render 
the detection unavoidable/' 3 r ea, in the 
ver3 7 place where the resurrection occurred, 
they had their greatest number of converts 
and also the attesting facts in the rise and 
growth of Christianity' and the Christian 
church. Chrysostom says — "For the Chris- 
tian religion to have been spread over the 
world without miracles, would be a greater 
miracle than any recorded in the New 
Testament. " 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE CHURCH AS CHRIST'S 
MONUMENT 

CHRISTIANITY WAS BEFORE THE 
NEW TESTAMENT. 

HHHE New Testament was a growth of 
-A- the first century. Document after 
document was written by many men indif- 
ferent places. Paul wrote from Corinth, 
from the barracks at Rome; Peter wrote 
from Babylon, wherever that was; John 
wrote from Ephesus. Professor Harnack 
pushes the date of the epistles backward 
several years earlier than formerly accept- 
ed, even by the orthodox teachers. So that 
we can safely assume that from some year 



124 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in the fifties until the 3 7 ear ninety-five, 
this book of the Kingdom arose. Under 
these circumstances it is plain that Chris- 
tianity was the cause of, and produced, the 
New Testament,, in the effectual sense of 
the word cause. There was a religion, per- 
fected as. a saving faith, fully developed in 
every essential, which antedates the books 
from which we have learned it. There was 
also a church, an organization whose wel- 
fare called forth these documents. The 
very oldest perhaps is the First Thessalo- 
nians, written for instruction and par- 
ticularly about Christ's second coming. 
Here we have the fullest evidence for a 
well organized church in the year 53 A. 
D. disturbed by speculations concerning 
Christ's second advent. 

CHRIST IS BEFORE CHRISTIANITY. 

But Christianit3 T itself is an effect. The 
power of a character, a life, supreme^ good 
and divine, is behind Christianity. Jesus 
Christ lived, and if He had not been what 
His disciples represented Him to be, then 
whence came Christianity? Where are the 
germs that brought forth the fruitage? 
Evolution, mechanical, theistic or any 



THE CHURCH AS CHRIST'S MONUMENT. 125 

other, stands dumb when it confronts this 
phenomenon of the first century. It could 
not be explained, not even upon the ground 
of a revealing God, without the personal 
revelation, Jesus Christ. The only ade- 
quate and reasonable explanation is in the 
life, death and resurrection of the God 
Man. 

THE CHURCH IS HIS MONUMENT. 

From His earthly life the church arose 
and has continued nearly two thousand 
\ r ears. Its material is human lives in pro- 
cess of struggle with sin. Hence it must 
be expected to be an imperfect organiza- 
tion. But its ideal is perfect righteous- 
ness and holiness. It has sometimes fal- 
len very low in the conflict; but has always 
had enough spiritual light and power to 
arise and, in newness of the old life, march 
onward towards its goal of victory. Noth- 
ing ever could have saved the church from 
the times of Nero until now if it had not 
possessed a great supernatural source and 
supply. With all their defects and divi- 
sions, all churches, Greek, Roman Catholic 
and Protestant, look back to their common 
origin and creator, Jesus Christ. 



126 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ITS GROWTH. 

Why did it expand so rapidly and effect- 
ually? No keener critic of its growth has 
ever w T ritten about this wonderful progress 
than Gibbon in his "Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire. " There are the five causes 
which he assigns for the spread of 
Christianity — "the zeal of Christians," 
"their doctrine of a future life/' "the 
miraculous powers ascribed to the primi- 
tive church," "their pure and austere 
morals," and "their union." But, pray, 
w r hat was the cause of these elements? 
Did these produce Christianity? Did not 
Christianity produce these elements in 
human lives? 

NOT FROM HUMAN ENTHUSIASM. 

Christianity is too deep to have for its 
cause human enthusiasm for better things. 
Truly the thoughtful men of the world 
were sick of its infamy, indeed alwa} T s had 
been. Seneca's denunciation of the societ}^ 
of his times was an old story. But none 
saw the true malady nor the remedy. 
Christianity charged men with sin in a 
way that had never been known before. 
It assured them that they were hopelessly 



THE CHURCH AS CHRIST'S MONUMENT. 127 

lost, that there was no avenue of escape 
open. It raised the consciousness of guilt 
and hopeless futurity. Enthusiasts never 
arise in this way. He who was the fore- 
most preacher of Christianity called him- 
self the chiefest of sinners ; and this is char- 
acteristic of all the apostles and disciples. 
Christianity proposed to remove this guilt 
and to change this hopeless fate, not b}^ 
am^ trifling nor human means, but b}" faith 
in the atonement through the death of 
Jesus Christ. Immortal life was offered 
through His resurrection. This is as far as 
can be imagined from the methods of hu- 
man enthusiasts. i 

JUDAISM CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR IT. 

Xor can the system of religion called 
Judaism account for Christianity. Their 
connection is historical and vital. The last 
and greatest of the Jewish prophets, John 
the Baptist, was the forerunner and attest- 
or of Jesus as the Savior. The Old Testa- 
ment and the New are one in author, spirit 
and purpose. But Judaism had become 
useless as a saving faith. Its roots of truth 
and the spiritual kingdom of a righteous 
God were hidden. Jesus brought them to 

1 Hopkins' Evidences, p 188. 



128 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

light, and then endowed them with a life 
and power of which the most enlightened 
Jews had never dreamed. The teacher of 
Israel wonderingly said: "How can these 
things be?" 1 Jesus opposed the whole 
Jewish system of His day. He shattered 
its sectarianism and bigotry. He bade 
farewell to its temple and its sacred places. 
His whole life ran counter to their ideas of 
Messiah. He set aside even the ceremonial 
law, by fulfiling it. He gave up His life in 
the face of the condemnation of the holy 
council of the Jews; and then set His death 
over against their entire religious system, 
calmly declaring thatHe had come into the 
world for this purpose, and confident that 
His death would revolutionize the world. 
And it has and will. This is not the way 
in which a mere Jewish reformer would 
have lived and died. 

THE SACRAMENT IS A MONUMENT. 

The Christian church with its peculiar 
institutions has to be accounted for. The 
Lord's Supper alone furnishes an unan- 
swerable argument for its founder. That 
Jesus instituted it is beyond question; and 
underneath all the form and ceremony, 

l John 3:9. 



THE CHURCH AS CHRIST'S MONUMENT. 129 

that often has been attached to it, the 
church has ever discerned the body and 
blood of the Lord. From the days of the 
apostles this monument has been in evi- 
dence, a constant proof of His death and 
an assurance of His return. The resurrec- 
tion of Jesus alone can account for the en- 
during vitality of this holy sacrament. A 
living Jesus is the only logical inference 
from this monumental fact. "And ever 
since has this blessed institution lain as 
the golden morning light far out even in 
the churche's darkest night- not onlj- the 
seal of His presence and its pledge, but also 
the promise of the bright day at His 
coming, "i 



1 Eidersheim. vol i. p512. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



PROPHECY. 



^lr^HE very nature of prophec}^ is mirac- 
-A- ulous. A correct induction or a 
wise forecast or a mere coincidence of 
statement and succeeding event cannot 
account for Scripture prophecies. Justin 
Martyr said: "To declare a thing- shall 
come to be, long before it is in being, and 
then to bring about that very thing accord- 
ing to the same declaration, this, or nothing, 
is the work of God." 

In Isaiah 44:28 the prophet says: "That 
saith of C3 T rus, He is my shepherd, and 
shall perform all my pleasure; even sa3^ing 
of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and to 



PROPHECY. 131 



the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." 
A century and a half after these words 
were written, Cyrus in his decree writes as 
follows: Ezra 1:3 --"Whosoever there is 
among you of all his people, his God be with 
him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which 
is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord r 
the God of Israel, (He is the God) which is 
in Jerusalem. " On this passage Dr. Mark 
Hopkins says: "History itself could not 
be more plain or specific, and such events 
were plainly beyond the reach of human 
sagacity, "i 

But Isaiah and Jeremiah are abundant 
in such remarkable evidence of genuine 
prophecy. 

CHRISTIANITY AND JESUS CHRIST 
IN PROPHECY. 

Although the Jews in Jesus' time had 
largely lost the spiritual truths of the old 
religion of Israel, their scriptures possess 
ed enough of this prophetic element to 
warrant the claim that Jesus of Nazareth 
was an historical fulfilment of them. 

Jesus appealed to the Scriptures. We 
prove the Scriptures through Jesus. This 

1 Hopkins' Lowell Lectures. Ch. on Prophecy. 



132 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

is not reasoning in a circle; but is as if one 
person should prove that the rain is com- 
ing because certain kinds of clouds gather, 
and afterwards another person proves that 
certain clouds have gathered because it 
has rained. These are independent lines 
of reasoning and are valid. 

John the Baptist was prophesied in 
Mai. 4, in Isa. 40:3. The Christ was to be of 
the house of David in Isa. 11:10, Jer. 23:5, 6. 
The place of birth was prophesied in Micah 
5:2. Christ was to work miracles, Isa. 35:5, 
6. He was to enter Jerusalem in a kingly 
and prophetic manner, Zech. 9:9. He was 
to be rejected, Isa. 8:14, 53:2, 3; scourged 
and mocked, Isa. 50:6. Almost the entire 
crucifixion scene is in Psalm 22, Zech. 
12:10 and Isa. 53:9. He was to rise from the 
grave, Psalm 16:10. These are some texts 
in the Old Testament which were fulfiled 
in detail in Jesus' life on earth. Here we 
face the evidence of a stupendous miracle, 
both in the giving of these prophecies and 
the experiences of our Lord. 

JESUS' KINGDOM WAS PROPHESIED. 

The Bible, both in the Old and New 
Testaments, is the Book of the Kingdom of 



PROPHECY. 133 



God. The Old Testament prophesied that 
hiMessiah,orChrist,thatKingdom would be- 
come world-wide, not b}^ arms but b} r peace, 
not a government of human control, but of 
divine supernatural power (Isa. 9:6-7). The 
Gentiles would be included, unto the ends 
of the earth (Isa. 49:6 and 40:3-5). Jesus 
designedh- fulriled these, it wall be said. 
But to designedly- fulfil these would re- 
quire supernatural power. His enemies 
also fulriled some of these prophecies. 
Did they designedly do it? 

JESUS AXD THE APOSTLES PROPHESIED. 

He foretold His death and the manner 
thereof in John 3:14, Matt. 17:22, 23, Mark 
9:31, Luke 9:44; in the same passages He 
tells them that he will rise again. The} r 
acknowledge that the} 7 did not believe these 
things, could not understand them, yet 
afterwards they remembered. 

Jesus prophesied the Jewish war and 
the destruction of the holy city, the utter 
overthrow of the temple and the flight of 
the Christians, in Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 
21. We have but to read Josephus and 



134 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Tacitus, and the miraculousness of these 
chapters is incontestable. 

The spread of the Christian religion 
was also a matter of prophecy with Jesus. 
Witness the parable of the mustard seed. 
The apostles were to be witnesses to all 
nations for their evangelization, Acts 1:8, 
Matt. 28:19, 20. Jesus warned them, and 
prepared them to meet the very events of 
their apostolic life, prophesying even the 
death of Peter, in John 21:19. 

We have but glanced at this line of 
proof of the supernaturalness of Christian- 
ity. The argument from prophecy alone 
would make a creditable case. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE TEST OF MORALITY 
AND EXPERIENCE. 



CHRISTIANITY, like its author, offers 
itself to every honest test. The char- 
acter of Jesus which we have considered 
grows brighter and purer the longer and 
more deeply it is studied. His religion 
also though taught by means of earthen 
vessels 1 reflects the perfect image of Jesus 
Christ. Every cardinal point may be tried 
by moral and experiential tests; and the 
severer the trial the more satisfactory will 
be the result. Morality will confess a 

1 2nd Cor. 4:7. 



136 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

superior institution in Christianity; and 
experience will acknowledge its supreme 
comfort and satisfactoriness. Reaching 
this decision, and comparing Christianity 
with the other religions of the world, we 
shall find that there is no other that in the 
light of these facts can be called a religion. 
If Christianity endures this moral and ex- 
perimental test, then in view of its external 
evidences, in comparison with other forms 
of belief, it is the only spiritual religion. 
Christianity professes to be a saving relig- 
ion, and the only saving religion. "And in 
none other is there salvation; for neither 
is there any other name under heaven, 
that is given among men, wherein we must 
be saved. "i There is no need to compare 
Christianity with other forms of religious 
belief ; if Christianity is proved supernatu- 
ral and true, then any truths which may be 
in others cannot save them from being 
false religions. -, 

CARDINAL DOCTRINES. GOD. 

God is revealed, in all His attributes, a 
perfect being, self-existent and infinite, not 
removed far from His creatures, nor iden- 
tified with them, as in deism and panthe- 

l Acts 4:12. 



MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE. 137 



ism, but near and with a living providence 
caring for them. God is perfectly just and 
merciful. He overlooks the weakness and 
failings of men, not that the} 7 may be 
lightly forgiven, but looking onward to the 
redemption which He is to accomplish for 
them. God is love and holiness. It is 
enough to say that no other conception of 
God from any source can be compared to 
this. 



MAX THE SINFUL CHILD. 

Christianity appeals to the conscience 
of fallen man, and asks if its charge of de- 
pravity is not true. It boldly accuses us of 
sin by nature and deed. It never glosses 
over the iniquities of our natural heart. It 
never closes the question until the stain is 
entirely removed. This sinful man is still 
an offspring of God, made in His image but 
lost. Sin is traced back to the root, in sin, 
the principle of disobedience which is in 
the human soul. We submit this to our 
moral consciousness, and behold we recog- 
nize the truth which could not be known 
without Christianity. Experience and the 



138 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Christian doctrine of sin are in perfect 

harmony. 

SALVATION. 

Christianity proposes to save this sin- 
ful being. Into his darkened soul a ray of 
light is sent, a voice speaks hope and cheer. 
Man is lost, but need not be forever so. 
Life becomes hopeful. Even this experi- 
ence of struggle is infinitely better than 
the hopeless lethargy of unaroused sinful 
men; and assurance is given with full 
proof, that hereafter there will be perfect 
life. What a contrast with any other form 
of faith! The Christian Heaven is where 
God's will is perfectly obeyed, and all His 
creatures praise and serve Him — rest and 
activity perfect each other. 

THE ATONEMENT. 

The means to this end is the atonement 
wrought by Jesus Christ. Here we come 
to the keenest moral test; but this citadel 
of our faith arises far above, and our mo- 
rality can but stand in awe and reverence 
before it The atonement is vicarious. 
Jesus Christ, though sinless, was made sin 
for us. "He bare our sins," suffered on 



MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE. 139 

account of them, died under this suffering 
and thus atoned for them. He proved Him- 
self the Son of God, and as such could do 
this vicarious work. Onl} r a God could have 
done it. Eternal justice is satisfied. God's 
supreme government is vindicated in the 
sinful domain, man is saved, and there is 
no other way morally conceivable. The 
ideal of God's perfect government is shat- 
tered, if we accept any lower view of the 
atonement. 

Further, this atonement is voluntary. 
This completes the moral structure and 
lifts it far above us. Jesus Christ was not 
compelled to die. He made Himself the 
substitute. "Who being in the form of God, 
counted it not a prize to be on an equality 
with God, but emptied Himself, taking 
the form of a servant, being made in the 
likeness of men; and being found in fash- 
ion as a man, He humbled Himself, becom- 
ing obedient even unto death, yea, the 
death of the cross. "i Human morality 
never conceived such an ideal as this; and 
Jesus' life, especially when He, knowing 
all that awaited Him, "steadfastly set His 
face to go to Jerusalem," realized it. This 
1 Phil. 2:<>, 7, 8. 



140 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

voluntary element in the atonement, cou- 
pled with the judicial, makes it the sim- 
plest and profoundest conception that ever 
has arisen among men. It came not a dry 
dogma, but a living actor who performed 
it by deed and demonstration. The epistles 
of the New Testament are absolutely in- 
conceivable without the life of Jesus. No 
human origin can account for this teach- 
ing; none for such a life. 

CHRISTIAN MORALS. 

But Christianity makes men good in 
this world. Truly this goodness is not per- 
fect. "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as 
your heavenly Father is perfect." Face it 
with our moral consciousness, and decide! 
— Can we lower it? Dare we lower it? 
Can such an ideal be derived from a human 
source? Still once having obtained, we 
recognize it as the only perfect ideal, and 
we cannot lower it. We are just as help- 
less in our inability to lower it, as we should 
have been in our inability to erect it. 

Another moral proof is the perfect re- 
conciliation between the two principles of 
self-interest and unselfishness. They never 



MORALITY AND EXPERIENCE. 141 



had been reconciled, they never could be 
in he limitations of human thought. Yet 
tl e germs of both are valid and imperish- 
able in human nature. Jesus denied 
Himself and taught His disciples to deny 
themselves. At the same time He was 
toiling for His Kingdom and His throne. 
"Who for the jo} x that was set before Him, 
endured the cross. "i Hence the Christian 
virtue is unselfish, and at the same time 
seeks the destined reward. The reward 
does not vitiate the virtue, nor does the 
virtue o'erlook the reward. This harmony 
was in Jesus' life, and His is the unselfish- 
ness that challenges the admiration of the 
ages. We have it in Him, not as a moral 
philosoph\ T but as a moral life; and we are 
constrained to sa} r , no human agent could 
have invented it. 

EXPERIENCE. 
Jesus Christ the divine Savior of men 
can be received only b} T faith. Faith is the 
ultimate test. "Have faith" was Jesus' 
urgent command. Faith apprehends the 
spiritual Jesus. Hence the} T who have 
faith are qualified witnesses to Jesus and 
Christianity. They are not biased ; they 

1 HEB. 12:2. 



142 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

are competent to testii3 7 internal evidence. 
Just as the witness on the stand who has 
received benefit or injury from a certain 
medicinal remedy, is not biased but com- 
petent, so those whom Christianity has 
reached with saving power are in ever} x 
way admissible to testify this. And what 
a multitude can be summoned! 

CONCLUSION. 

We conclude from the foregoing evi- 
dence, both external and internal, that 
Christianity stands unique and alone, the 
only supernatural religion. We have 
shown that revealed religion to be effective 
in binding sinful man to his Holy Maker, 
forgiving and saving the lost and constant- 
ly lifting them into purer moral life, must 
have supernatural attestation without, 
and conscious virtues within. It must be 
universal, suited to all men in all places, 
and after its revelation good for all time. 
Such is Christianity. No one can doubt 
that Buddha lived and that his ashes are 
buried in Nepal; that as a philosophical 
reformer he was far in advance of the 
superstitious priest-craft of his day. But 
he left no saving faith nor spiritual power 



MORALITY VXD EXPERIENCE. 143 

that solves the problem of sin, or answers 
the yearnings for holiness and Heaven. 
This can he said of ever}^ other claimant to 
the founding of a religious faith except the 
Christ who founded Christianity. He and 
His Gospel, enduring ever} T test, are to-da}" 
standing out in clearer and stronger light, 
enhanced b} x the evidence of every new, 
regenerate heart. He is the only Savior. 
Christianity is the onlv religion. 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Acts, Genuineness of 1 16 

Alogians .,.. 71 

Anselm 13 

Apologetics v 

Archeology 50 

Aristion ' 69 

Aristotle 14 

Authenticity of Old Testament 47, 89 

Authenticity of the Resurrection 105 

Barnabas 83 

Basilides 70, 

Baur. 120 

Bruce, Apologetics v 

Campbell, Rev. W. H., D. D iv, x, 21, 39, 

Carthage, Council of 88 

Cerdo • 85 

Celsus 38, 107 

Cerinthus 71 

Character of Jesus ? 98 

Character of Gospel Writers 90, 91, 92 

Chrysostom 1 14, 122 

Church, the Monument 125 

Clarke, Rev. Samuel, D. D 14 

Claudius 57 

Clement of Alexandria 66, 88 



INDEX. 14.1 



Clement of Rome 83. 

Codex Sinaiticus 88. 

Cosmological Argument 14. 

Credibility 47, 89. 

Cuneiform Letters 51. 

Cyrus 1 30. 

Descartes 13, 

Design 17. 

Didache 70, 84. 

Edersheim 129, 

Ethics of Old Testament 55. 

Eusebius 69, 71, 88. 

Evidence vi, vii, viii. 

Evolution 18, 19 20. 

Feuerbach 24. 

Final Cause 15. 

Fisher's Manual iii, x, 96. 

Genuineness 1 47. 

Gibbon 126. 

God, the Existence of 12. 

Godet 66, 69, 85. 

Greek Language 59. 

Hardy, Pliny's Correspondence 58. 

Harnack 117, 123. 

Heroditus 48. 

Higher Criticism 49. 

Hodge 13. 

Hopkins 33, 131. 

Hume 31, 32, 106. 

Huxley 39, 99, 106. 

Ignatius 69. 

Internal Proof of John 72. 

Integrity 47. 



146 INDEX. 



Inspiration 23, 

Irenaeus 64, 86 

Jews, Dispersion 60. 

John, Genuineness of 63, 87 

John, Presbyter 69, 

John the Apostle 92 

Josephus 48, 59 

Judas 94 

Julian the Apostate 33 

Justin Martyr 67, 78, 130 

Lardner 57, 58, 64 

Luke, Genuineness of 87. 

Luke the Writer .. 91,92 

Mark, Character of 91 

Mark, Genuineness of Gospel 76, 87 

Marcion 70, 84 

Matthew, Character of 91 

Matthew, Genuineness of Gospel 76, 86, 

M'Clymont 117 

Meyer 74 

Mill, John Stuart 16, 32 

Miracles, Cause and Need . . . ... 28, 29 

Moral Argument 20 

Moses, Writer of Pentateuch 51 

Mosheim 60 

Muratorian Canon ; 57 

New Testament Canon ^ 62 

Nero 56,57 

Ontological Argument 13 

Origen 

Pantheism 30 

Paul 40, 41, n6, 

Papias 68, 79, 



INDEX. 147 



Paulsen 35. 

Persecutions of Christians 56. 

Pliny 58, 117. 

Polycarp 68.82. 

Proof, Internal, External vii, viii. 

Prophecy 1 30. 

Renan 43,44- 

Row, Manual of Christian Evidence 103. 

Sacraments 128. 

Schaff 68,80,120. 

Scientific Objections 34. 

Socrates 17. 

Spencer 16. 

Spinoza 30. 

*Spinozism, see Preface 

Stearns vii, 14. 

Suetonius 57. 

Synoptic Problem y6. 

Tacitus , 56,117,134. 

Tatian % 67. 

Thomas Aquinas 14. 

Theophilus of Antioch 67. 

Tiberius 57. 

Tajan 58. 

Tertullian 66, 88. 

Valentinus 70. 

Versions, Syriac and Latin 67. 



For discussion of New Spinozism see Maher's Psycho- 
logy, pp 261, 505. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



TOPIC. PAGE. 

Introduction . . . . v— xi. 

Definition — Nature of the Evidence — Internal and 

External Evidence- — Cumulative Evidence 

— Scope of Inquiry. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Divine Existence 13—22. 

Ontological Argument — Cosmological Argument— 
Teleological Argument — Moral Argument. 

CHAPTER II. 
Revelation 23 — 27. 

Revelation and Inspiration — Possibility of Revela- 
tion—Probability of Revelation — God is 
Merciful— Necessity of Revelation. 

CHAPTER III. 
Miracles 28-39. 

Sufficient Cause in Divine Existence — Sufficient Cause 
in need of Revelation — Pantheistic Objections — Hume's 
Argument— Hume's Fallacy — Rationalistic Objections — 
Scientific Objections — Ethical Answer — Historical An- 
swer—Scientific Answer — Early Opponents — Presump- 
tion against Miracles Removed. 



CONTEXTS. 149 



CHAPTER IV. 

Topic. Page. 

Proof of Miracles 

from Common Ground 40 46. 

Common Ground — Paul's Miracles in Romans — Words 
of Jesus — Present Day Miracles. 

CHAPTER V. 

Authenticity of the Old Testament 47 55. 

Use of Terms — Old Testament formerly Uncorroborated 
Rise of Higher Criticism — Rise of Archeology-- Mon- 
umental Vindication — Jesus and the Old Testament — 
Harmony of the Old and New. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Presumption of Documents 

from Roman Historians 56 — 61. 

Statements of Tacitus — Statement of Suetonius— Testi- 
mony from Pliny -—Value of this Testimony — the Greek 
Language and the Jews — a First Century 
Christian Literature. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Genuineness of the 

Gospel according to John .62 75. 

Structure of the New Testament— Genuineness, Credi- 
bility and Supernaturalness -Genuineness of John— Ire- 
naeus —Subsequent Testimony — Tertullian — Clement — 
Theophilus — Muratorian Canon — JLatin and Syriac 
Versions — Tatian — Justin— Polycarp — Papias — Ignatius 
— the Heretics -the Didache — Summary of the Exter- 
nal Evidence — Internal Evidence — Who was "ihis Dis- 
ciple?"— Who is the Unnamed Disciple?— He isin An- 
other Group —All are Excluded except John. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Genuineness of the Synoptics 76 88. 

The Synoptic Problem— John Presumes Other Gospels — 



150 CONTENTS. 



Topic. Page, 

Testimony of Justin Martyr— Testimony of Papias — 
Earlier Epistolary Evidence— Epistle of Polycarp — 
Epistle of Barnabas— Epistles of Clement of Rome— the 
Didache —Testimony to Luke's Gospel — No Early De- 
fence Needed— Irenaeus Testifies— "Gospels "are "Me- 
morials" — Subsequent Evidence. 

CHAPTER IX. 

New Testament Credibility 

and Authenticity 89 — 97. 

The Universal Attestation— Character of the Writers — 

their Humility — their Candor — Deceivers, Deceived or 

Honest Men with Facts— Harmony. 

CHAPTER X. 

Character of Jesus 98 — 104. 

A Many Sided Character— Huxley and the Gadarene 
Swine- Positive Witness— No Self-Reproach— this Char- 
acter is a Miracle — the Son of God. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Authenticity of the Resurrec- 
tion of Jesus 105 — 115. 

Hume's Test— Importance— Jesus' Death — the Burial and 
Watch— the Four Accounts — the Empty Tomb — First- 
Day Appearances —Appearances Afterwards- 
Character of the Appearances. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Paul 116—122. 

The Genuineness of Acts— Paul Saw Jesus— Paul was 

Unprepared — Paul's Personal Testimony— 

the Concurrent Test. 



CONTEXTS. 151 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Topic. Page. 

The Church as Christ's Monu- 
ment 123—129 

Christ is Before Christianity— the Church, His Monument 
— Its Growth — Not from Human Enthusiasm — Judaism 
Cannot Account for it - the Sacraments are a Monument. 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Prophecy 130—134 

Christianity and Christ in Prophecy— Jesus' Kingdom 
was Prophesied — Jesus and the Apostles Prophesied. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Test of Morality and Experi- 

en ce 135—143 

Cardinal Doctrines. God — Man the Sinful Child -Salva- 
tion - Atonement — Christian Morals- 
Experience— Conclusion. 



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